MR.  GUSHING  <7/^ 

MLLE.DUCHASTEL 


FRANCES  RUMSEY 


Exquisite  and  Sophisticated  Novel 


BY  LEWIS  GALANTIERE. 

CERTAINLY  it  were  little  enough 
to  say  of  "  MR.  ClTSHINfJ  AND 
MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL,"  by 
tnces  Rumsey  [Lane]  that, 
considered  purely  as  a  novel,  by  which 
I  mean  that  which  the  French  so  ac- 
curately temi  a  roman,  it  was  the  fin- 
est product  of  the  literary  year  of  1917. 
And  there  are  those  among  us  who  will 
feel  this  book  to  be  the  most  interest- 
ing revelation  of  a  certain  stratum  of 
French  society  that  flas  been  made  in 
the  years  intervening  since  Henry 
James  wrote  so  delicately  and  so  feel- 
ingly of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of 
France.  Many  of  those  characteristics 
which  W.  C.  Brownell.  with  his  unpar- 
alleled sympathy  and  insight,  inter- 
preted in  "French  Traits"  are  illus- 
trated in  the  person  of  the  composite 
French  aristocrat  known  here  by  the 
beautiful  name  of  Anne-Marie  du  Chas- 

The  story  is  of  the  marriage,  divorce, 
and  reconciliation  of  Paul  Gushing,  an 
American  of  wealth  and  position,  en- 
dowed with  all  those  virtues  upon 
which  we  have  come  to»look  as  pecul- 
iarly Anglo-Saxon,  modesty,  generosity, 
sincerity,  integrity,  and  Anne-Marie  du 
Chastel,  a  young  Frenchwoman  of  the 
type  universally  aped  in  France  by  the 
soi-disant  royalists,  aristocratic  in 
every  act,  thought,  and  reaction  that 
the  term  implies.  And  the  essential 
wisdom,  the  truth  and  the  beauty  of 
the  novel,  lies  in  the  unrelenting  •lab- 
oration  of  their  racial  antagonism. 

*  *       -I 

Racial  Points,  Keynote. 
y/tTPIHE     irritating    persistence    of 
**    I       some  of  her   French  habits." 
It    is    in    this    line     that     we 
•*•     have  the  keynote  of  the  story 
and    its    raison    d'etre.      On    his     side 
ling     found     it     increasingly     un- 
i  able  to  observe  her  "  sense  of  ef- 
fect." to  note  the  fashion  in  which  she 
carefully  attired  her  mind,  as  well  as 
herself,  in  preparation  for  each  event. 
One  remembers,  for  example,  that  on 
the  occasion  of  the  burial  of  her  guar- 
dian, Miss  Morrow,  "  the  most  lenient 
spectator  would  have  been  unable  to 
separate  Anne-Marie's  tears  from  her 


careful  sense  of  fashion  and^from  her 
concern  as  to  the  way  in  which  her 
crepe  veil  should  fall  from  her  shoul- 
ders. ...  He  had  been  unable  to 
escape  from  his  persistent  astonish- 
ment at  his  wife's  capacity  to  be  over- 
come by  the  sadness  of  death  and 
to  treat  it  as  the  most  social  of  oc- 
casions." 

And,  for  her  part,  it  was  her  very 
"sense  of  effect"  that  made  her  life 
in  America  with  Cushing  so  difficult. 
To  Arthur  Irish,  a  younger  Pierpont 

Morgan  in  his  connoisseurship  and  his 
rare  love  and  appreciation  of  objets 
d'art,  the  one  American  whose  nature 
she  found  sympathetic  to  her  own, 
Anne-Marie  was  able  to  express  herself 
about  America.  "  You  do  not  see  facts. 
That  is  the  reason  you  have  no  form — 
no  sense  of  definition.  .  .  .  Ah,  but 
how  it  can  make  one  suffer — your  in- 
directness, your  lack  of  definition'" 

*       * 
Divergence  of  Views. 

IT  is   here   that   the  point  of  diver- 
gence between  two  classes  of  read- 
ers occurs.     I,  who  have  a  Gallic 
strain   in   me,   was   constrained   to 
pity  poor,  transplanted  Anne-Marie  du 
Chastel.    And  yet  it  was  no  great  sur- 
prise to  me  that  such  an  Englishman 
as  John  Cowper  Powys,  than  whom  I 
know    no    more    intelligent     lover     of 
France  and  the  French,  should   have 
been  able  to  tell  me,  upon  reading  the 
book,  that   he  was   unable   to   sympa- 
thize|With  Anne-Marie  and  looked  with 
no  small  contempt  and  despision  upon 
her  tale-bearing  to  Arthur  Irish. 

The  author's  viewpoint,  if  I  may  ven- 
ture a  supposition,  seems  to  me  to  pro- 
ceed from  the  same  direction.  And  I 
say  this  despite  my  appreciation  of  her 
interesting  and  quite  extraordinary 
aloofness.  Except  as  displayed  in  cer- 
tain of  the  novels  of  Joseph  Conrad,  I 
do  not  recall  a  contemporary  author 
who  has  so  successfully  maintained  the 
impartial  attitude  of  the  lookeron  as 
has  Frances  Rumsey  in  the  composi- 
tion of  this  novel.  Writing  in  the  man- 
ner of  Henry  James,  she  has  consist- 
ently refused  to  employ  his  frequent 
j  expression  of  affection  for  a  particu- 
j  lar  character,  she  has  never  permitted 


herself  to  diffuse  that  glow  of  what,  for 
want  of  a  better  word,  I  must  call  hu- 
manness,  so  appreciably  patent  in  the 
work  of  her  master.  It  is  this  imper- 
.  sonal  quality,  this  finely  bred  reticence 
'curious  paradox!  that  has  made  me 
feel  this  novel  more  closely  to  approx- 
imate the  aesthetic  beauty  of  Henry 
James  than  even  the  work  of  Miss  Sidg-  I 
wick  or  Mrs.  Wharton. 

When  I  have  said  this,  I  have  in- 
dicated something  of  the  beau^  of  her  I 
writing.  Is  this  a  first  novel?  I  can- 
not say.  Certainly,  it  is  a  novel  of 
astonishing  completeness,  polished,  fin- 
ished, soignS,  to  a  degree  that  has 
made  its  reading  a  real  delight  and  its 
discovery  a  matter  for  pride. 


MR.   GUSHING   AND 
MLLE.    DU    CHASTEL 


MR.  GUSHING  AND 
MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 


BY 

FRANCES  RUMSEY 


NEW  YORK:  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 

LONDON:    JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD 

MCMXVII 


COPYRIGHT,  1917,  BY 
JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 


THE-PHMPTON-PttESS 
NORWOOD-MASS-  U-S-A 


BOOK  I 


2047424 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE. 
DU  CHASTEL 


SHALL  not  sail  just  yet.  Remain  for  important 
reasons.  Am  engaged  to  be  married  to  Anne-Marie 
du  Chastel." 

Gushing  had  composed  the  telegraphic  message  more 
than  once,  during  the  afternoon.  But  when  he  found 
himself  standing  at  the  long  desk  in  the  post  office  in  the 
rue  des  Capucines,  what  he  had  to  say  fitted  best  into  this 
brief  statement,  and  he  wrote  it  unhesitatingly  and  put  at 
the  head  of  it  his  sister's  name  and  her  New  York  ad- 
dress. It  had  been  part  of  his  unquestioning  confidence 
that  she  would  suit  her  reception  of  his  news  to  her 
knowledge  of  the  deeper  qualities  in  him  which  had 
brought  it  about.  Yet  the  significance  which  attached  to 
his  despatch  of  the  telegram  struck  him ;  and  the  fact  that 
once  it  was  sent  even  his  last  unavowed  hesitation  would 
have  ended  stirred  anew  his  sense  of  all  which  underlay 
the  apparent  at  such  a  point  of  departure. 

It  had  been  as  he  walked  to  the  post  office,  through  the 
crowded  streets  in  which  the  afternoon  radiance  of  Paris 
hung  like  a  diffused  golden  light,  that  he  had  begun  to  go 
over  the  history  not  only  of  the  events  but  of  the  hopes 

7 


8      MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

and  desires  which  had  led  to  his  present  situation.  He 
had  been  amongst  customs,  it  was  true,  which  treated 
the  personal  element  so  briefly  and  privately  that  it 
scarcely  seemed  to  exist.  But  it  had  none  the  less  been 
his  sense  of  a  romance  which  was  culminated  when,  one 
evening  a  week  before,  he  had  caught,  across  the  width 
of  a  crowded  room,  the  look  in  Mademoiselle  du  Chastel's 
face  which  was  evidently  waiting  to  greet  the  look  in  his. 

Gushing  had  reached  half  way  between  thirty  and  forty 
without  dwelling  on  his  inner  and  imaginative  needs  but 
with  a  strong  sense  of  their  existence.  In  a  country 
where  the  classifications  are  intuitive,  the  way  to  the 
modern  survival  of  the  old  aristocracy  of  rigour  from 
which  he  derived  is  still  closely  barred;  and  he  was 
aware  that  with  the  radical  American  spirit  he  had  in- 
herited demands  all  the  more  definite  in  that  they  were 
impalpable.  He  had  liked  to  think  that  in  spite  of  the 
changes  of  the  day  some  of  the  austerities  of  the  young 
nation  kept  alive  in  this  spiritual  form,  as  he  liked  to 
think  that  the  old  national  sense  of  a  high  purpose  had 
become  personal.  In  spite  of  its  cleverness,  he  knew 
that  the  modern  type  of  American  was  both  too  imita- 
tive and  too  fluid;  and  it  seemed  to  him  as  much  part 
of  the  special  quality  which  separated  him  from  it  as 
his  long  limbs,  his  stoop  and  his  quick  smile  that  there 
should  still  exist  in  him  something  of  this  romantic  sense 
of  the  idealist. 

Although  he  had  often  had  a  faint  sense  of  amuse- 
ment at  this  sentiment,  he  knew  that  it  took  practical 
forms  and  that  it  had  not  been  only  his  natural  indif- 
ference which  had  kept  him  unmarried.  He  had  never 
lost  the  idea  of  something  final  and  absolute  in  marriage, 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL   9 

something  definitely  separate  from  all  fugitive  contacts. 
If  he  had  lived  with  the  freedom  of  a  man  with  enough 
fortune  to  come  and  go  as  he  pleased,  he  had  at  the  same 
time  had  a  half-formed  purpose  of  reserving  his  deep- 
est response  for  a  feeling  which  should  claim  the  best 
loyalties  he  was  capable  of  giving.  It  had  been  Made- 
moiselle du  Chastel's  first  charm  for  him  that  she  was 
not  only  young  and  lovely,  but  that  with  her  air  of  be- 
ing almost  more  than  a  person — a  slow,  elaborate  de- 
sign, of  infinite  intricacy — she  had  promised  to  exact 
from  him  all  that  he  would  want  her  to  exact.  After 
their  slight  friendship — so  slight  that  in  a  world  which 
placed  its  emphasis  more  blatantly  it  would  scarcely  have 
existed — her  brief  admission  to  him,  in  her  single  look, 
of  what  her  answer  to  his  suit  would  be,  had  served  to 
remind  him  of  the  wealth  such  reticence  could  conceal. 
In  their  few  meetings  she  had  taught  him  the  most  subtle 
manifestations  of  response ;  and  though  he  knew  her  so 
little,  the  sense  that,  with  each  step,  he  would  find  more 
in  her  to  know,  had  already  made  his  feeling  for  her 
extend  to  the  widest  perspectives. 

He  had  continued  to  stand,  with  the  telegraph  blank 
under  his  hand  and  his  eyes  absently  passing  over  the 
shifting  figures  which  crossed  and  recrossed  the  long 
room.  He  was  always  keenly  alive  to  the  vivid  person- 
ality of  a  French  crowd.  But  his  thoughts  were  fixed 
upon  a  central  point,  and  amongst  the  people  who  came 
and  went  between  the  wire  windows  and  the  long  shelf 
which  served  as  a  desk,  none  detached  himself  with 
any  special  appeal  to  his  interest.  It  was  not  for  some 
seconds  that  he  was  aware  that  a  lady  who  had  come 
from  the  postal  grating  with  her  hands  full  of  stamps 


10    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

and  letters  and  who  was  now  beginning,  only  a  few  feet 
from  where  he  stood,  to  sort  out  her  correspondence, 
had,  as  absently  as  he  looked  at  her,  looked  back  at  him, 
and  had  then  abruptly  paused  in  her  task. 

Gushing  had  travelled  too  constantly  and  in  too  well- 
beaten  a  track  not  to  be  prepared  for  the  chance,  any- 
where in  Europe,  of  unexpected  meetings.  But  almost 
before  his  realisation  of  his  surprise  he  was  ironically 
aware  that  the  lack  of  any  visible  perturbation,  in  his 
compatriot  or  in  himself,  was  what  marked  the  extent  to 
which  the  surprise  of  each  must  extend.  The  lady,  in- 
deed, hesitated  for  a  moment  more,  and  then  held  out  her 
hand. 

"Of  all  extraordinary  things !  Or  do  you  believe 

in  the  fatality  of  the  extraordinary  ?"  She  ended  her  ex- 
clamation with  the  question  reflected  in  the  charm  of 
her  irregular  face.  "So  you're  here !" 

"It's  much  more  to  the  point,"  Gushing  smiled  back, 
"that  you  are!  I  hadn't  the  least  idea  you  were  in 
Paris." 

"Of  course  I'm  in  Paris.  Every  one  is,  every  spring. 
Even  you,  my  dear  Paul,  who  obstinately  do  what  you 
want  while  all  the  rest  of  us  do  what  we  must — even  you 
are  here,  you  see." 

"You've  come  from  home?" 

"Yes — I  suppose  so."  Mrs.  Herring  turned  her  bright 
head  with  a  restless  movement  which  matched  the  ex- 
aggerated tilt  of  the  feather  in  her  hat  and  the  size  of 
the  rings  on  her  bare  hand.  "If  you  want  to  be  tech- 
nical there's  no  place  which  gives  me  the  sense  of  home — 
even  when  I  leave  it ;  and  leaving  makes  one  sentimental." 
She  raised  her  eyes  to  his.  "Edith's  not  with  you  ?" 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    11 

"No,  I'm  alone.  I've  been  endlessly  busy,  seeing  for- 
eign clients,  seeing  friends " 

She  took  him  up  quickly.  "And  not  seeing  me?  Oh, 
I  know  you  too  well.  You  never  avoid  people;  you 
merely  don't  take  the  trouble  to  look  for  them."  Her 
glance  met  his  again,  with  a  light  amusement.  "I've  my 
information  about  you ;  I  hear  things,  from  time  to  time. 
And  you?  Do  you  ever  have  information  about  me?" 

"I've  any  information  you'll  let  me  have,  my  dear 

Geraldine "  he  was  beginning,  but  she  interposed, 

with  the  challenge  of  her  tone  changed  to  a  sudden 
impatience. 

"No,  you  haven't.  What  nonsense!  As  if  you  cared 
for  an  instant  either  for  information  about  me  or  whether 
I'd  let  you  have  it  or  not.  For  the  matter  of  that,  as  if  I 
cared  whether  you  have  it  or  not!  Heavens,  and  at 
the  rate  at  which  we  all  live! — a  thousand  miles  to-day 
from  where  we  were  yesterday.  How  ridiculous  if  we 

did  spend  our  lives  looking  over  our  shoulders !" 

She  turned  back  to  the  desk  and  began  to  attach  the 
stamps  to  her  letters.  "And  yet  there's  where  men  are 
so  much  better  off  than  women.  If  you  hear  reports 
about  me,  you  scarcely  register  them.  If  I  hear  reports 
about  you,  my  woman's  curiosity,  as  they  say  here, 
intrigues  me."  She  turned  abruptly  and  again  she  con- 
fronted him.  "I  hear — let's  put  it  tactfully — that  you've 
got  plans  for  yourself." 

Gushing  laughed.  "I  wish  you'd  share  your  informa- 
tion with  me,  then.  It's  one  of  my  complaints  against 
myself  that  I  seldom  bother  with  plans,  with  expecta- 
tions, with  causes  and  effects.  A  humiliating  admission 
for  a  lawyer,  isn't  it ?"  He  hesitated,  struck  by 


12  MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

something  in  his  companion's  attitude.  He  could  not 
have  defined  the  feeling  of  unease  it  gave  him,  but 
there  ran  through  its  studied  detachment  a  suggestion 
which  he  could  only  name  as  one  of  antagonism,  the  less 
deniable  in  that  it  was  carefully  veiled.  The  impression 
was  vivid  enough  to  put  him  on  his  guard,  and  he  made 
his  own  tone  scrupulously  impartial  as  he  continued. 
"But  if  there  were  anything  concerning  me  which  it 
would  interest  you  to  hear — and  granting  that  it  be- 
longed to  the  class  of  things  permissible  to  tell " 

Mrs.  Herring  waited  for  an  appreciable  moment,  and 
then  she  made  an  impatient  gesture,  which  seemed  defi- 
nitely to  dispose  of  the  superficial  significance  of  what 
he  said.  "I  heard  that  last  week  you  were  in  London — 
that  you'd  dined  at  the  embassy." 

"It's  there,  then,  that  you  had  news  of  me!"  Gushing 
kept  his  voice  light  and  easy.  "It's  one  of  the  disad- 
vantages of  having  cousins  in  diplomacy  that  one  can't 
escape  them.  I've  run  over,  once  or  twice,  for  the  inside 
of  a  week,  but  I've  scarcely  seen  my  friends.  I've  seen 
only  the  ladies  our  ambassadress  ordered  me  to  take  in 
to  dinner." 

Mrs.  Herring  was  again  silent.  Her  eyes,  Gushing 
noticed,  did  not  shift  from  the  desk  in  front  of  her; 
and  following  their  direction  he  saw  that  they  were 
steadily  set  on  the  telegraph  blank  which  lay  beneath  his 
hand. 

His  instinctive  feeling,  as  he  realised  the  direction  of 
her  look,  was  one  of  unreasoning  annoyance.  The  fact 
that  she  could  easily  read  the  message  he  had  written 
his  sister  mattered  no  more  than  the  rumours  she  heard 
concerning  him.  She  could  not  hold  him  accountable 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     13 

for  the  smallest  breach  of  courtesy;  he  remembered  that 
the  evening  before,  when  he  had  gone  over  the  letters 
he  would  write,  when  his  engagement  was  formally  an- 
nounced, he  had  planned  to  write  one  of  the  first  of 
them  to  her,  and  as  soon  as  the  proper  time  arrived  he 
would  fulfil  his  resolution.  The  persistency  of  her  gaze 
and  of  her  questions  had  the  faint  suggestion  of  a  claim 
on  his  interest ;  yet  he  had  never  been  more  honestly  clear 
in  his  palliation  of  his  conduct  where  she  had  been  con- 
cerned. Even  in  looking  back,  at  recollections  which 
had  the  same  unsubstantial  quality  as  her  talk  and  the 
varying  phases  of  her  curiosity,  he  could  remember  that, 
in  the  large  sense  of  the  words,  he  had  been  as  con- 
siderate and  as  decent  as  possible.  Mrs.  Herring  had 
been  free,  she  had  been  experienced  enough  to  know  her 
own  mind,  and  Gushing  had  been  plainly  aware  that 
before  he  had  known  her  she  had  asserted  the  inde- 
pendence which  it  was  her  constant  habit  to  proclaim. 
He  had  ceased  to  see  her  entirely  at  her  request;  and  it 
had  made  his  memories  the  more  evanescent  that  where 
he  had  had  his  regrets  concerning  a  piece  of  folly  he 
could  scarcely  be  proud  of,  she  had  been  so  plainly  and 
consistently  indifferent. 

Yet  as  her  pause  deepened  and  prolonged  itself,  Gush- 
ing felt  himself  dominated  by  a  swift  touch  of  pity.  He 
could  not  be  fatuous  enough  to  believe  that  he  had  re- 
tained a  place  in  so  agitated  a  life,  whose  reason  for 
existence,  as  he  had  often  sardonically  thought,  was 
merely  seasonal.  His  impatience  now  was  rather  with 
himself,  for  ignoring  the  less  obvious  and  truer  signifi- 
cances which  might  underlie  their  meeting.  He  ought 
to  have  remembered  not  only  that  Mrs.  Herring  was 


14    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

never  what  she  seemed  but  never  what  she  tried  to  be. 
He  knew  that  it  was  one  of  her  most  difficult  qualities 
that  she  instinctively  submerged  her  real  self  in  the  in- 
tricacies of  her  manner;  and  as  he  examined  her  face 
more  closely,  he  fancied  that  he  saw  in  it  the  slight 
traces  of  feeling.  It  was  plainly  incongruous  to  attempt 
to  match  the  idea  of  any  sentiment  with  so  exaggerated  a 
charm  as  hers.  But  the  suggestion  was  apparent  enough 
to  make  him  flush,  under  the  pressure  of  deeper  recol- 
lections. 

"You've  always  been  so  extraordinarily  nice  about 
taking  an  interest  in  my  useless  affairs;  and  as  soon  as 
there's  anything  to  tell  about  them,  be  sure  that  I'll  ask 
for  the  sympathy  and  kindness  you've  so  generously  given 
me." 

The  glance  she  turned  to  him  slowly  deepened  to 
gravity.  "All  I  mean  is  that  there,  in  London,  I  under- 
stood that  your  plans  were  definite.  Your  cousins  told 
me,  of  course  unofficially,  that  your  engagement  would 
shortly  be  announced." 

Gushing  felt  his  flush  rise  again;  not,  as  he  realised, 
because  of  the  necessary  admission  of  his  own  projects 
but  because  of  his  growing  surprise.  Yet  her  visible  com- 
motion was  still  so  contradictory  to  her  otherwise  smooth 
exterior  that  he  hesitated  again.  "I'd  planned  to  let  you 
know.  I  want  you  to  be  sure  of  that.  And  above  all 
I  want  you  to  be  sure  that  I  value  your  wanting  to 
know." 

Though  there  was  not  the  slightest  tremor  in  her  half- 
averted  face,  the  flash  of  feeling  which  for  a  moment  lit 
it  seemed  to  give  him  a  glimpse  not  only  of  the  way  in 
which  she  was  now  affected  but  of  a  process  of  change 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     15 

which,  in  the  months  since  they  had  met,  must  have  been 
constantly  affecting  her. 

"That's  nice  of  you.  I,  you  know,  was  never  the  nice 
one !"  She  was  motionless  for  a  moment  more.  Then 
she  abruptly  gathered  up  her  letters  and  held  out  her 
hand.  "I  understand.  I  hope  you'll  be  happy.  I  really 
hope  it,  I  mean.  I  think  I  hope  it  more  than  I  hope 
anything  else."  Her  face  changed  again,  and  she  glanced 
at  the  clock  above  them.  "Heavens,  what  an  hour  it  is! 
And  I'm  due  at  the  Ritz !  Wouldn't  you  know,  wherever 
and  however  you  met  me,  that  I'd  always  be  due  at  the 
Ritz?"  She  gave  him  a  quick  smile,  and  a  moment  later 
she  had  passed  out  of  the  doorway. 


II 


CUSHING  made  his  way  down  the  darker  street, 
to  where  the  rue  de  la  Paix  spread  a  transverse 
shaft  of  coloured  sunlight,  and  hailed  a  motor  cab,  and 
in  a  few  moments  more  he  was  passing  between  the 
bright  tints  of  the  lower  Tuileries  gardens  and  towards 
the  brighter  expanse  of  river.  The  few  moments'  talk 
in  the  post  office  had  left  him  an  impression  which  was 
scarcely  tangible.  Yet  his  instinct  of  fair  play  was  too 
acute  not  to  make  his  thoughts  revolve  around  and  around 
the  doubt  of  what  Mrs.  Herring  had  either  betrayed  or 
conveyed;  and  it  was  not  until  the  tall  grey  houses  on 
the  other  side  of  the  river  became  plainly  discernible 
that  he  was  reminded  that  lately  his  own  standard  of 
what  a  woman's  delicacy  and  perception  could  mean  had 
insensibly  shifted. 


16    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

He  had  been  in  Europe  enough  to  have  made  his  dis- 
tinctions between  even  the  less  obvious  types  of  Parisians. 
But  in  the  last  few  days,  with  his  relation  to  Paris  on  the 
point  of  definite  establishment,  the  actual  transit  from 
one  part  of  the  city  to  another  had  come  to  mean  to  him 
the  transit  to  another  world.  It  was  not  so  much  that 
these  people  were  distinguished  and  intelligent  as  that 
they  exacted  new  standards  and  untried  discriminations 
— they  made  one  see  one's  self,  as  he  had  had  to  admit,  in 
the  light  of  new  perceptions.  The  tall  old  house  in  the 
rue  de  Bellechasse,  before  which  he  now  stopped,  had 
struck  him  as  the  symbol  of  a  problem  at  once  so  elusive 
and  so  practical.  He  had  come  to  have  the  sense,  with 
a  smile  at  his  own  suspicion  of  effects,  that  a  certain 
effect  led  up  to  it.  The  gradual  passage  to  a  quieter 
quarter  was  followed  by  the  gradual  extension  of  the 
silence  which  underlay  the  superficial  noises  of  the  traffic ; 
and  in  the  sunny  grey  courtyard  and  in  the  grave  archi- 
tecture, whose  ornament  was  so  obscurely  placed,  as  if 
what  were  beautiful  needed  no  display,  he  felt  that  he 
had  surprised  something  of  the  actual  structure  of  the 
society  which  existed  here. 

He  had  been  prepared  to  find  that  he  was  face  to  face 
with  different  customs,  as  he  had  been  prepared  for  the 
fact  that  they  would  never  be  explained  to  him.  Such 
ignorances  as  he  showed  were  either  disregarded  or  else 
gracefully  taken  for  granted :  he  was  sure  that  his  sense 
of  this  would  always  underlie  the  simplest  occurrences. 
Yet  such  obvious  difficulties  as  his  ignorances  had  not 
seemed  to  him  more  disturbing  than  the  more  obvious  of 
the  difficult  relations  he  had  had  to  establish,  or  than 
the  interview,  for  instance,  which  he  had  had  that  morn- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    17 

ing  with  an  old  lawyer  whose  life  had  evidently  been 
spent  in  the  service  of  such  traditions.  He  had  found 
Maitre  Duclos  in  a  shabby  brown  room,  lined  with  books 
which  were  plainly  objects  of  family  piety  rather  than 
of  learning,  and  ready  to  welcome  him  with  every  affa- 
bility. Gushing  was  clearly  able  to  see  that  this  affability 
was  only  the  outward  sign  of  a  point  of  view  immutably 
sure  of  itself.  Throughout  the  talk  he  felt  himself  re- 
garded as  nothing  more  than  an  alien;  a  generous  one, 
perhaps,  since  he  was  ready  to  meet  all  the  requirements 
of  his  future  wife's  relatives,  but  still  a  person  with 
whom  one  dealt  at  arm's  length.  At  some  turn  of  the 
proceedings  he  had  shown  a  flash  of  his  own  business 
astuteness;  and  the  courtesy  with  which  it  was  dis- 
counted and  with  which  the  exigencies  of  reason  were 
made  to  give  way  to  the  exigencies  of  politeness  was 
an  added  proof  to  him  of  the  imperturbability  of  the 
older  nation. 

It  had  been  his  first  experience  with  a  man  who  had 
had  a  legal  training  like  his  own,  and  who  might  be  sup- 
posed to  follow  his  own  processes  of  mind.  Though  he 
granted  the  wide  difference  between  them,  it  had  seemed 
to  him  a  difference  as  recognisable,  and  therefore  as  safe, 
as  the  difference  between  the  sharp,  tasteless  air  of  the 
houses  in  which  he  had  lived  and  the  air  which  per- 
vaded the  wide  staircase  which  led  to  the  apartment 
where  he  now  turned  his  steps,  and  which  seemed  to 
have  retained  the  aroma  of  successive  generations.  Upon 
people  whose  sense  of  life  was  so  decorative  and  so  alert 
— in  a  way,  so  purely  visual — he  felt  that  he  could  suc- 
cessfully impose  the  definiteness  and  breadth  of  his  own 
views.  It  was  rather  in  the  large  salon  where  he  pres- 


18    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

ently  found  himself,  filled  now  with  the  slanting  after- 
noon light,  that  he  had  had  his  most  definite  uncertain- 
ties. The  idea  had  occurred  to  him  before  that  he  might 
have  felt  least  sure  of  himself  here  not  because  of  the 
strangeness  of  the  room  but  because  of  its  disturbingly 
familiar  look,  as  if  a  touch  of  New  York  had  by  some 
incredible  means  found  its  way  to  the  rue  de  Bellechasse. 
He  had  paused  in  front  of  the  fire  when  the  servant 
who  admitted  him  left  to  announce  his  name ;  and  as  his 
glance  strayed  around  him,  the  remembrance  of  the 
hours  he  had  spent  here  rose  before  him.  At  his  father's 
early  death  he  had  succeeded  to  the  management  of  the 
legal  affairs  of  one  of  the  oldest  of  their  family  friends, 
a  lady  who,  many  years  before,  had  come  to  live  in  Paris 
and  who  was  of  the  generation  which  regarded  a  knowl- 
edge of  French  customs  and  French  prices  as  an  under- 
standing of  the  French  character.  Every  spring  when  he 
stopped  in  Paris  to  see  her,  Gushing  had  been  amused  by 
the  odd  effect  of  Miss  Morrow's  persistent  and  uncon- 
scious Americanisms  underneath  her  superficial  assimila- 
tion of  an  older  tradition.  The  result  of  her  long  resi- 
dence in  Paris  struck  him  as  scarcely  less  incongruous 
than  the  effect  of  the  photographs  of  her  American 
friends  on  the  rich  old  mantels,  and  the  books  and  minia- 
tures whose  tradition  had  been  so  obviously  purchased. 
It  had  been  because  of  the  contrast  between  her  and  her 
ward,  the  young  French  girl  who,  each  year,  had  appeared 
to  greet  him  with  a  more  shyly  warm  welcome  and  to 
see  him  go  with  a  more  charming  regret,  that  Gushing 
had  first  realised  the  definiteness  of  the  line  drawn  be- 
tween the  two  nations.  Miss  Morrow,  as  he  reflected, 
had  done  what  she  would  never  suspect;  she  had  been 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     19 

the  means  of  warning  him  that  in  order  to  make  the 
French  like  him  it  would  be  better  to  exaggerate  his 
native  view  rather  than  to  let  it  be  dispelled  in  the  first 
whiff  of  foreign  air.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  accept 
what  he  did  not  know  about  the  older  race  as  he  ac- 
cepted the  intricacy  of  their  sentences  and  the  dispassion 
of  their  tone.  But  whatever  had  won  his  suit,  he  was 
certain  that  in  his  refusal  to  concede  the  smallest  of  his 
own  standpoints,  or  even  of  his  own  prejudices,  he  had 
found  his  strongest  position. 

Gushing  had  seldom  felt  more  definitely  in  command 
of  his  own  resources,  and  yet  as  he  turned,  in  response 
to  the  opening  of  the  door  nearest  him,  he  was  aware 
of  a  sudden  perturbation.  It  was  not  so  much  a  sense  of 
confusion  as  it  was  an  instinctive  regret  that  he  was 
about  to  expose,  for  the  first  time,  the  depth  of  a  feel- 
ing which  had  taken  root  in  the  inmost  reticences  of  his 
nature.  All  his  hopes  had  grouped  themselves  around 
Anne-Marie  du  Chastel's  consent  to  marry  him  and  he 
had  seen  in  her  the  realisation  of  his  most  precious  and 
delicate  fancies ;  yet  as  he  paused,  before  going  forward 
to  meet  her,  he  found  himself  thinking  how  difficult  it 
was  to  sacrifice  the  unimpaired  charm  of  the  secret  and 
to  exchange  a  hope  which  had  been  so  privately  main- 
tained for  a  certainty  which  might  after  all  not  be  as 
worth  while. 

He  began  directly  he  had  taken  the  hand  she  held  out 
to  him. 

"Of  course  you've  heard  from  Miss  Morrow  that  she 
and  your  cousins  gave  their  consent  to  our  marriage  and 
that,  to-day,  I'm  free  to  speak  to  you.  But  you  must  have 
understood  all  along  that  I  cared  for  you." 


20     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

She  answered  instantly.  "Yes,  of  course  I  have  un- 
derstood. And  it  gives  me  all  the  happiness  in  the  world 
to  accept."  She  continued  to  look  at  him  for  a  moment 
more,  and  then  he  was  aware  that  she  eased  the  situa- 
tion by  the  smile  which  first  quivered  in  her  eyes  and 
spread  gradually  to  her  lips.  "But  I  have  not  seen 
you  for  all  these  days,  while  these  arrangements  have 
been  in  progress.  How  do  you  do?" 

Gushing  smiled  back  at  her.  "I  don't  manage  these 
things  as  people  manage  here,  I  suppose;  but  I  do  beg 
you  to  believe  that  I've  meant  to  be  everything  consid- 
erate, to  do  all  in  my  power " 

Mademoiselle  du  Chastel  raised  her  hand  to  interrupt 
him.  "You  have  been  charming — you  have  been  only 
charming.  Every  one  has  said  so — Miss  Morrow,  my 
relatives,  every  one.  You  could  not  have  been  more  kind 
and  more  considerate.  Come !  Shall  we  sit  down  ?"  She 
turned,  with  her  quick  ease,  to  the  sofa  beside  the  fire. 

Gushing  had  a  deep  sense  of  his  relief.  His  great  wish 
had  been  to  conduct  the  matter  with  every  concession  on 
his  side  to  the  difference  of  nationality  between  them  and 
to  show  his  understanding  of  the  fact  that  in  such  things 
the  man  was  always  on  his  ground  and  the  woman  not 
on  hers — that  it  was  after  all  his  privilege  to  be  generous. 
To  have  everything  successfully  arranged,  even  accord- 
ing to  the  complex  French  code,  appeared  to  have  dis- 
pelled the  last  barrier  to  his  complete  admission  of  his 
happiness;  and  yet,  as  he  glanced  at  Mademoiselle  du 
Chastel,  in  this  nearer  view,  he  was  conscious  that  he 
had  never  felt  her  more  of  a  stranger.  She  was  looking 
at  him  with  that  combination  of  a  smile  with  her  cool 
dignity  which  reminded  him  again  that  her  greatest 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    21 

enchantment  was  always  in  her  suggestion  of  reserve.  It 
was  a  reserve  warmed  by  sudden  flashes  and  changes, 
and  he  had  felt  its  charm  so  vividly  that  it  was  this,  he 
remembered,  which  had  first  led  him  to  apply  the  word 
enchanting  to  her  and  had  shown  him  how  far  more 
rarely  it  could  be  employed  than  the  word  beautiful. 
Her  face  was  remarkable  for  a  quality  beyond  any  per- 
fection of  line  or  tint — a  light  alertness  of  spirit  and 
feeling,  which  one  caught  in  the  sharp  angles  of  her 
cheek  and  nose,  in  the  sensitive  corners  of  her  lips  and 
in  her  bright,  grave  eyes,  and  which  was  the  constant 
question  of  her  dramatic  eyebrows.  He  had  never  seen 
any  one  less  restless  and  more  alive;  her  peculiar  bril- 
liancy made  her  repose  itself  alive.  She  was  pale,  but 
something  of  this  inner  vitality  warmed  her  skin,  when 
she  spoke,  to  the  tint  of  old  ivory.  Her  head  was  mod- 
elled to  move  easily  and  quickly,  her  hands  to  spread 
open  and  rise  and  fall.  He  had  long  ago  noted  the 
significance  of  her  gestures,  as  if  she  placed  in  them  an 
eloquence  greater  than  in  her  words. 

He  roused  himself  to  respond  to  the  questions  she  was 
putting  to  him.  "Oh,  yes,  I  heard  from  Madame  de 
Jobourg  that  she  had  no  objections  to  offer — she  was  the 
last,  wasn't  she  ? — and  this  morning  I  saw  the  lawyer  who 
acts  for  your  family.  It's  all  settled;  even  Miss  Morrow 
feels  that  I  haven't  hurt  the  French  susceptibilities " 

"Ah,  dear  Miss  Morrow !"  she  exclaimed,  with  her 
smile  deepening  to  meet  his.  "She  has  been  so  good! 
And  now  that  I  am  to  leave  her,  after  all  these  years! 
But  she  recognises,  of  course,  how  fortunate  it  is  for  me." 

"You're  not  afraid  of  America?" 


22     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"Nor  you  of  France?  You  are  large,  but  we — how 
shall  I  say  it  ? — we  are  concentrated." 

"Ah,  yes,  you're  that!" 

She  continued  smoothly.  "We  are  also,  I  admit,  very 
ignorant  of  what  is  outside  of  France ;  but,  as  you  know, 
I  have  lived  with  Miss  Morrow  for  so  long  that  I  have 
perhaps  learned  a  little  more  of  the  world  than  most 
French  girls.  You  will  not  consider  that" — her  eyebrows 
lifted  quickly — "a  disadvantage?" 

Gushing  restrained  his  impulse  to  smile.  "But  I've 
been  so  immensely  glad,  since  your  home  is  to  be  amongst 
Americans,  that  you've  had  some  experience  of  us " 

Mademoiselle  du  Chastel  took  him  up  at  once.  "Miss 
Morrow  has  been  everything  most  good  to  me,  and  her 
friends-1— they  have  always  been  charming,"  she  hesitated ; 
"but  a  young  girl  who  is  an  outsider,  who  is  very  little 
more  than  a  companion " 

"It  hasn't  always  been  so  easy,  has  it?" 

She  sent  a  thoughtful  look  around  the  room,  as  if  to 
summon  before  her  the  years  she  had  passed  there,  and 
then  turned  back  to  him  with  a  shrug.  "It  has  not  always 
been  easy,  no.  You  can  see  for  yourself,  I  am  sure,  that 
my  position  was  not  without  its  difficulties.  To  be  living 
in  France,  my  own  country,  with  a  stranger,  to  whose 
kindness  I  owed  everything — yes,  everything — yet  who 
was  not  of  my  own  race  or  of  my  family — I  will  con- 
fess to  you,"  she  ended,  with  a  light  amusement  in  her 
eyes,  "that  it  has  made  me  more  absolutely  French  than 
I  should  otherwise  have  been." 

"But  don't  you  know,"  Gushing  paused  to  try  to  find 
how  to  express  his  meaning,  "don't  you  know  that  it's 
just  because  of  that  that  I've  always  so  tremendously 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    23 

admired  you?  Because  you  kept  yourself  separate  and 
because  you  didn't  lose  the  smallest  part  of  your  own 
quality  and  your  own  dignity?  If  France  does  that  for 
its  women !" 

"Then  that  was  the  reason?  The  reason,  I  mean," 
she  flushed  a  little,  "that,  beyond  our  sympathy,  you  felt 
such  a  marriage  would  be  wise  and  possible?" 

"Oh,  as  for  its  being  possible,  it's  part  of  our  national 
conceit,  I  suppose,  that  we  make  possible  whatever  we 
want !" 

"But  how  you  say  that!"  She  clasped  her  hands.  "I 
too,  I  have  observed  it  in  you.  You  are  the  American  of 
the  true  type,  the  very  best  type.  And  yet  you  did  not 
want  to  marry  an  American  woman?" 

"I  scarcely  planned  to  fall  in  love  or  not  to  fall  in 
love  because  of  a  matter  of  nationality!"  Gushing  hesi- 
tated in  his  turn  and  his  face  grew  grave.  "You  repre- 
sented all  I  could  think  a  woman  ought  to  be.  It  hasn't 
been  only  that  I  loved  you" — the  words  seemed  to  him 
inadequate  and  trite  compared  to  the  press  of  his  feelings 
behind  them — "but  that  I  so  intensely  sympathised  with 
you — with  the  way  you've  lived  and  the  way  you've  man- 
aged the  circumstances  in  which  you  found  yourself.  I 
myself  don't  quite  understand  how  it  is ;  somehow  when 
one  cares  as  much  as  I've  come  to  care  for  you  one 
doesn't  expect  to  stop  to  think  of  those  things.  But  I've 
never  been  able  to  see  you  apart  from  them  and  they've 
seemed  to  me  to  run  all  through  you — to  be  part  of  your 
very  beauty." 

She  seemed  to  turn  over  the  facts  for  a  moment.  "Yet 
you  are  so  definitely  one  thing  and  I  another;  you  are  so 
definitely  of  your  race  and  I  of  mine !" 


24    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

Gushing  put  this  aside.  "Oh,  what  is  left  of  those 
differences  nowadays  but  a  difference  of  training? 
We've  all  become  more  or  less  cosmopolitan.  What  does 
seem  to  me  important  is  that  you  in  your  own  way  and 
I  in  mine  have  the  same  views  about  things  and  the 
same  sympathies :  we're  at  least  alike,"  his  smile  showed 
again,  "in  differing  from  most  of  the  people  around  us." 

"You  would  not  have  wanted  to  marry  a  woman  who 
had  no  sense — let  us  say,  of  fitness  ?"  she  asked. 

"No  more  than  you  would  have  wanted  to  marry  a 
man  who  didn't  at  least  make  an  effort  to  live  up  to  the 
responsibilities  of  life,"  he  returned,  again  with  some 
quality  of  tenderness  behind  the  lightness  of  his  tone. 

"Perfectly!"  she  exclaimed.  "Parfaitement!"  It  was 
her  first  French  word,  and  as  she  pronounced  it  he  found 
himself  wondering  if  any  interpolation  of  the  foreign 
could  have  been  more  foreign  than  her  scrupulous  use 
of  English.  The  years  she  had  spent  with  Miss  Morrow 
had  taught  her  an  English  of  clear  perfection,  with  a 
wide,  sensitive  vocabulary,  and  her  fine  enunciation  was 
heightened  by  her  sharp,  tingling  accent.  It  had  made 
her  seem  less  strange  to  Gushing  that  she  so  freely  used 
his  own  tongue ;  and  yet  he  found,  oddly  enough,  that  at 
this  moment  the  care  which  she  had  taken  to  do  so  re- 
minded him  of  their  difference. 

It  was  like  the  difference  of  method  between  them,  and 
for  the  first  time  he  felt  himself  confronted  by  the  fact 
of  how  wide  that  difference  was.  If  Anne-Marie  had 
been  of  his  own  race  he  knew  what  the  order  of  events 
would  have  been.  The  sudden,  awkward  expression  of 
their  feelings  would  have  been  followed  by  an  enthusiasm 
which  admitted  nothing  else;  and  her  treatment  of  the 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    25 

situation  was  so  genuinely  formal  that,  though  he  was 
prepared  for  such  forms,  so  much  now  stood  behind  them 
that  he  could  not  help  thinking  her  unemotional.  Her  air 
of  inaccessibility,  as  she  sat  upright  in  her  cool  white 
dress,  reminded  him  of  his  secret  amusement  at  the  im- 
possibilities of  the  French  standpoint — at  the  long  de- 
liberations of  her  most  distant  relatives  and  the  discreet 
impositions  of  the  lawyer.  He  could  only  say  to  himself 
what  he  had  recognised  before ;  he  would  have  to  submit 
to  these  ways  good-humouredly,  and  when  they  were 
married  he  would  show  her  something  of  a  clearer  and 
simpler  air. 

During  his  silence  he  became  aware,  in  some  indefinable 
manner,  that  her  attitude  was  gradually  altering.  Her 
glance  had  fallen  and  her  hands,  which  she  had  clasped 
in  her  lap,  began  to  intertwine  restlessly.  The  change 
was  so  slight  that  he  could  not  have  described  it.  It  was 
scarcely  more  palpable  than  the  faint  pink  which  was 
now  steady  in  her  clear  cheeks.  But  she  had  somehow 
managed  to  remind  him  that  she  was  defenceless  and 
young,  and  that  with  a  brief  word  she  had  signed  herself 
away  to  important  issues.  Her  loveliness  had  warmed, 
with  a  touch  of  intimacy  which  stirred  and  deepened 
his  feeling.  He  was  conscious  of  both  their  isolation  and 
their  nearness,  in  the  wide,  clear  spaces  of  the  room,  with 
the  fading  sun  striking  fringes  of  light  from  the  edges 
of  her  hair  and  the  logs  in  the  fire  beside  them  burning 
down  to  a  pale,  silvery  grey.  In  her  very  care  to  main- 
tain the  perfection  of  formality,  he  recognised  that  there 
must  be  a  vivid  consciousness  of  their  relation.  For  the 
first  time  it  occurred  to  him  that  if  she  had  none  of  the 


26    MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

laxities  of  his  race  she  implied  all  the  deeper  an  under- 
standing of  what  produced  them. 

His  imagination  was  so  struck  by  this  undefined  change 
that  when  he  spoke  it  was  in  a  deeper  tone.  "Of  course 
you  must  realise  what  it's  meant  to  me — to  know  you 
would  marry  me." 

"Yes;  I  have  understood,  I  have  fancied " 

"And  you;  had  you  thought  of  me  in  that  way  for 
long?  We  always  had  something  to  draw  us  together, 
hadn't  we  ?  Even  when  you  were  still  a  child  and  I  was 
just  grown — that  was  the  first  time  I  saw  you,  I  remem- 
ber, when  you  had  been  living  with  Miss  Morrow  for 
only  a  year  or  so.  I  didn't  see  you  again  until  you  your- 
self were  grown — I  don't  know  how  long  it  was.  Per- 
haps you  weren't  here  when  I  happened  to  go  through 
Paris ;  but  one  Sunday  about  five  years  ago " 

"Ah,  I  too  remember  that!  It  was  in  the  spring,  and 
you  and  your  sister  came  to  luncheon."  It  seemed  to  him 
that  the  grave  way  in  which  she  helped  to  establish  the 
little  past  they  had  between  them  had  an  immense  charm. 
"You  talked  about  so  many  things,  and  I  listened  and 
felt  very  ignorant ;  I  was  not  yet  accustomed,  you  see," 
she  added,  "to  that  kind  of  conversation." 

"I  watched  you  across  the  table;  that  you  don't  re- 
member." 

"But  yes ;  I  do." 

"Had  you  begun  to  like  me  then?" 

Her  colour  perceptibly  deepened.  "Yes,  I  liked  you; 
and  each  spring,  when  the  Americans  arrived,  I  used  to 
wonder  if  you  and  Mrs.  Sale  would  come.  Sometimes 
you  came  unexpectedly,  you  know,  without  letting  Miss 
Morrow  know;  and  as  I  sat  at  the  tea  table  on  her  day 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    27 

at  home,  I  used  to  listen  for  the  names  that  were  an- 
nounced and  wonder  if  I  should  hear  yours." 

"And  I  sat  through  the  dullest  tea  parties,"  Gushing 
protested — "tea  parties  of  stranded  Americans,  not  only 
here  but  all  over  Paris,  just  for  the  pleasure  of  catching 
a  glimpse  of  you !" 

"Ah,  have  they  been  dull,  those  parties !"  She  gave  a 
quick  sigh.  "Some  of  Miss  Morrow's  friends  puzzled 
me  so — especially  the  young  girls !  They  troubled  about 
me  very  little,  to  be  sure."  Her  shoulders  rose.  "A 
protegee — she  is  never  of  much  importance." 

"And  didn't  you  know  how  unimportant  you  made 
them  all  seem?"  Gushing  caught  himself  up  as  if  his 
tone  verged  on  too  great  intimacy.  "Then  once  I  came 
in  the  late  afternoon,  and  Miss  Morrow  went  to  her 
sitting  room  and  left  us  to  talk.  It  was  a  year  ago  last 
autumn.  Do  you  remember  that?  We  sat  in  the  little 
drawing  room  and  you  gave  me  tea.  You  had  been 
reading  some  book  on  America,  and  we  discussed  it."  He 
held  himself  again.  "I  remember  that  you  wore  a  blue 
dress,  and  I  had  never  before  thought  you  so  lovely." 

"Yes,  I  remember;  but  I  remember  perfectly." 

"That  was  the  last  time  until  six  weeks  ago;  and  all 
this  spring  it  has  somehow  been  so  strange  and  yet  so 
definite.  I  don't  know  how  it  worked  itself  out;  but 

that  night,  when  I  caught  your  eyes  across  the  room " 

He  leaned  towards  her,  trying  to  see  her  lowered  face. 
"I  felt,  then,  that  we  had  so  much  more  to  say  than  we 
had  ever  said." 

"Yes." 

"I  suppose  that's  the  way  with  all  the  best  things — one 
feels  them  before  one  can  say  them;  and  when  we  said 


28    MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

good-night  I  knew  you  understood  as  well  as  I  what  I 
wanted  to  say." 

"Yes,"  she  said  again. 

"The  last  people  were  leaving,  and  you  were  here, 

beside  the  fire "  He  leaned  still  closer  to  her,  with 

the  sudden  resolve  to  kiss  her.  "Anne-Marie,"  he  lin- 
gered on  the  syllables  of  her  name,  "if  you  knew  what  it 
means  to  me !" 

She  shrank  back  in  her  seat  and  he  heard  her  murmur 
quickly:  "Yes,  and  to  me.  I  had  always  hoped — but  it 
was  what  I  had  always  so  immensely  counted  on,  that  you 
would  want  to  marry  me." 

Something  in  Gushing  was  astonished  to  the  point  of 
holding  him  motionless ;  and  before  he  could  make  out 
what  implication  in  her  words  seemed  so  surprising,  he 
became  aware  that  she  was  no  less  astonished  than  he. 
In  his  pause  and  in  the  suspense  of  his  attitude  she  evi- 
dently found  an  inexplicable  delay  of  what  she  expected 
of  him.  Her  eyes  met  his,  with  a  bewildered  look,  and 
for  a  moment  their  first  kiss  hovered  in  an  uncertainty. 


Ill 


YOU  must  be  beginning  by  now,  my  dear  boy,  to  see 
all  that  I  see  in  them." 

As  Gushing  took  his  seat  beside  her  tea  table,  Miss 
Morrow  had  made  the  exclamation  in  an  undertone ;  but 
he  had  been  conscious  all  afternoon  that  as  each  new 
group  of  people  came  in  she  had  sent  him  an  assurance, 
across  the  press  in  the  two  long  salons,  that  this  was  the 
very  best  that  Paris  had  to  offer. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    29 

The  few  weeks  since  the  announcement  of  his  engage- 
ment had  shown  him  enough  to  make  him  sure  that  Miss 
Morrow  herself  did  not  always  succeed  so  well  in  gath- 
ering together  the  people  whom  she  wanted.  It  had 
struck  Cushing's  humour  that  he  could  ascribe  their  pres- 
ence only  to  himself.  For  years  she  had  seemed  to  him 
one  of  that  class  of  his  countrywomen  who  pursue  a 
country  as  they  pursue  a  concrete  enthusiasm.  She  had 
grown  up  under  the  influence  of  ideas  which  exaggerated 
the  value  of  the  imported,  and  he  could  see  that  Paris 
had  long  since  ceased  in  her  eyes  to  be  a  city  and  had 
become  a  paradise.  Yet  Gushing  had  never  felt  more 
keenly  than  to-day  the  quality  which  made  her  pathos. 
She  had  never  seemed  to  him  more  restless  and  more 
eager,  with  her  near-sighted  eyes  more  nervously  inquisi- 
tive, and  more  completely  unaware  both  of  the  difficulty 
of  absorbing  her  surroundings  and  of  their  absorbing 
her. 

He  could  fancy  that  years  ago,  when  she  had  first 
arrived,  amiable  and  eccentric,  with  her  obviously  large 
fortune  and  her  excellent  introductions,  the  ladies  who 
were  now  disposed  about  the  rooms  must  have  come  to 
see  her  with  their  perfect  politeness  veiling  their  curi- 
osity. They  had  probably  been  interested  in  the  sum  of 
her  income,  her  furniture,  her  servants,  and  in  all  the 
categorical  features  of  her  life  rather  than  in  her  desire 
to  educate  herself  in  their  ways.  Indeed  it  seemed  to 
mark  the  difference  between  her  and  them  that  they 
should  have  regarded  her  merely  as  a  practical  object 
rather  than  as  an  intelligence.  If  Miss  Morrow  had 
been  more  finally  detached  from  her  own  nation,  he  could 
see  that  for  their  own  reasons  they  would  have  continued 


30  MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

to  come.  But  she  had  not  been  able  to  lose  her  acute- 
ness  and  her  distrust  of  imposition  as  she  had  lost,  she 
declared  to  him,  her  ability  to  figure  in  American  money, 
and  there  was  consequently  a  point  beyond  which  she 
would  not  go  in  her  subscriptions  to  bazars  de  charite  and 
oeuvres.  There  appeared  to  be  a  reason  no  less  practical 
for  the  presence  of  this  special  society  to-day;  he  could 
understand  that  as  he  was  about  to  assume  however 
slight  a  connection  with  them,  its  members  wished  to 
observe  him  and  to  see  how  he  stood  the  tests  which  they 
regarded  as  important. 

One  of  the  reasons  of  Cushing's  astonishment  was 
that  there  was  so  little  suggestion  of  like  or  dislike  in  this 
scrutiny.  It  was  plain  to  him  that  Anne-Marie's  rela- 
tives and  their  friends  did  not  question  his  character  any 
more  than  they  questioned  his  correct  though  difficult 
French,  and  that  their  observation  settled  upon  the  facts 
that  they  had  heard  that  he  had  inherited  a  handsome 
income,  to  which  he  was  yearly  adding,  that  his  tailor  was 
obviously  an  excellent  English  one  and  his  ease  an  ease 
which  was  not  acquired  but  inherited.  Gushing  had  never 
consciously  cultivated  a  manner,  but  he  had  had  to  school 
himself  at  an  early  age  to  deal  with  people,  and  he  had 
never  been  surer  than  this  afternoon  that  his  somewhat 
indifferent  courtesy,  lit  every  now  and  then  by  a  flash 
of  directness  and  acumen,  made  its  effect  when  he  wanted 
it  to. 

He  was  keenly  aware  of  the  pleasure  this  gave  him. 
It  was  something  to  have  Anne-Marie's  good  fortune  ad- 
mitted and  to  feel  that  he  had  to  a  certain  extent  imposed 
himself  upon  people  so  inimical  to  strangers.  He  had 
expected  to  find  them  very  much  what  they  were — with 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    31 

manners  both  charming  and  frank  and  minds  which  one 
inevitably  knew  were  oblique.  The  men  who  had  come 
to  what  was  in  the  nature  of  an  informal  reception  be- 
fore the  signing  of  the  Contrat,  were  as  delightful  but 
as  ineffectual  as  his  own  standards  had  promised  to  show 
them.  Their  superficial  geniality  was  so  much  more 
than  that  to  which  he  was  accustomed  that  he  found  it 
difficult  to  accept  seriously,  since  the  elaborate  usually 
meant  to  him  the  insincere,  and  the  only  one  he  could 
place  at  all  was  the  one  who  had  had  the  broadening 
experience  of  marrying  an  American  wife.  The  women 
too  he  could  have  sketched  in  advance ;  they  were  for  the 
most  part  faded,  middle-aged,  and  a  little  worn,  though 
here  and  there  he  saw  younger  ones  who  led  the  broader 
form  of  Parisian  life  and  had  their  names  in  the  papers 
otherwise  than  as  a  formal  chronicle  of  their  deplace- 
ments.  It  was  part  of  their  curious  mixture  of  the  elusive 
with  the  definite  that  they  should  all  imply — the  most 
blatant  as  well  as  the  most  obscure — that  they  stood  for 
criteria  as  delicate  as  they  were  implacable,  and  which 
had  the  same  distinction  as  the  distinction  with  which 
Anne-Marie's  head  rose  from  her  thin  throat.  He  had 
amplified  his  first  lessons,  and  he  knew  better  than  he  had 
known  a  month  ago  that  his  chief  surprise  in  these  people 
was  their  power  not  only  to  surprise  one  but  to  affect 
one ;  and  what  was  to  impress  him  most,  in  the  course  of 
the  afternoon,  was  that  there  was  some  quality  in  all  of 
them  which  made  their  good  opinion  rarely  valuable. 

Beside  him  his  hostess,  in  the  relaxation  which  fol- 
lowed so  successful  an  introduction  of  him  to  the  Fau- 
bourg, had  passed  from  her  exclamations  of  satisfaction 
to  what  interested  him  more  intimately.  There  were  only 


32  MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

half  a  dozen  people  left  and  they  were  grouped  across 
the  room  around  Anne-Marie,  with  their  voices  simul- 
taneously rising  in  the  French  inflexion. 

"Wouldn't  one  know,  to  look  at  her,  that  it's  the  best 
blood  in  France?  Her  father,  Rene  du  Chastel — of 
course  I  never  saw  him,  but  they  say  he  had  the  greatest 
air.  And  her  mother  was  born  a  Pontalis,  remember,  and 
her  grandmother  on  the  father's  side  a  Maupertuis.  One 
of  the  grand-uncles,  a  Maupertuis  too,  is  a  Cardinal.  It's 
a  line — it's  something  that  really  counts.  One  can't  live 
with  it  and  not  feel  that ;  and  to  think  that  after  all  these 
years  I'm  to  lose  her " 

"It's  been  how  long  that  she  has  lived  with  you?" 

"Thirteen  years,  almost  without  a  break ;  it  was  thirteen 
years  ago  last  June  that  I  first  saw  her  at  Maud  du 
Chastel's,  and  a  few  days  later  it  was  all  settled  and  she 
was  here." 

"Yes?"  said  Gushing  tentatively;  he  had  joined  her  in 
the  corner  with  the  request  that,  for  his  benefit,  she 
should  once  more  go  over  a  story  of  which  he  had  always 
been  vaguely  aware  but  whose  sequences  had  now  as- 
sumed an  intimate  interest. 

"It  was  just  after  Maud  was  married,"  pursued  Miss 
Morrow,  with  her  tone  falling  to  the  sentimental  note  of 
reminiscence.  "Of  course  I  myself  had  been  here  for 
years,  but  she  and  her  husband,  Guy  du  Chastel,  had 
only  just  arrived  from  New  York  to  settle  here.  I  had 
been  asked  to  keep  track  of  Maud — it's  not  so  easy  for 
an  American  to  meet  her  French  husband's  relatives — 
and  as  her  mother  was  both  my  cousin  and  one  of  my 
oldest  friends,  of  course  I  was  anxious  to  do  my  best. 
Then,  just  as  the  poor  child  was  getting  into  her  apart- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    33 

ment  and  had  everything  on  her  hands,  this  tragedy  took 
place.  Her  husband's  brother,  Rene,  and  his  wife  were 
stricken  with  a  low  fever,  and  within  a  few  days  of  each 
other  they  were  both  dead ;  and  they'd  left  behind  them 
this  little  daughter  of  ten,  with  no  woman  nearer  her 
than  her  young  American  aunt,  whom  she  scarcely  knew. 
It's  odd,  isn't  it?  but  as  a  nation  we  do  seem  to  have  a 
faculty  of  stepping  in  at  the  hopeless  moments."  Gushing 
had  often  noticed  that  when  it  came  to  what  was  final 
and  important  she  had  an  unconscious  reversion  to  her 
own  loyalties,  and  at  such  times  it  appeared  to  her  that 
all  people  were  ultimately  American  if  they  were  ulti- 
mately sane. 

"I  can  never  forget  that  day,"  she  went  on,  "nor  the 
look  of  that  poor  deserted  child.  I  had  dropped  in  to 
tea,  and  they  sent  for  her  to  come  to  the  drawing  room — 
Maud  was  kindness  itself  and  had  brought  her  home 
after  the  second  funeral.  It  was  incredibly  sad.  There 
was  no  money,  or  practically  none;  the  father  had  had 
heavy  losses  and  worse  debts,  and  the  only  members  of 
his  wife's  family  were  distant  cousins  with  nothing  but 
their  names  to  live  on.  There  was  only  one  way  out  of 
it,  and  that  was  for  Maud  to  take  Anne-Marie  and  bring 
her  up.  I  remember  we  all  acknowledged  it,  while  the 
poor  mite  sat  between  us,  in  her  black  dress,  and  looked 
from  one  to  the  other  of  us  with  her  frightened  eyes.  Ah, 
I  must  have  told  you  before  now  that  it's  Anne-Marie 
herself  who  makes  me  remember  that  day  so  vividly. 
There  was  something  so  strangely  mature  in  the  way  she 
resigned  herself — the  way  she  seemed  content  to  wait  for 
us  to  decide  what  was  to  become  of  her.  She  was  rather 
"  ?ly  then ;  her  skin  was  too  dark  and  her  eyes  too  large. 


34    MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

But  the  way  she  moved — the  way  she  held  herself ! 

I  said  to  myself  the  moment  I  laid  eyes  on  her,"  she 
ended,  "that  she  was  a  personality." 

Gushing  nodded  in  silence.  He  was  remembering  that 
Mademoiselle  du  Chastel  had  once  said  to  him,  with  a 
light  amusement,  and  in  one  of  those  brief  instants  aside 
which  had  been  the  foundation  of  his  knowledge  of  her, 
that  it  would  have  been  far  more  sympathetic  to  her  if 
Miss  Morrow  had  been  willing  to  accept  her  as  a  mere 
waif. 

"Well,  I  came  home  and  thought  it  over.  I  knew  I 
mustn't  act  on  impulse,  but  the  child  haunted  me.  I 
suppose  I  was  moved,  too,  by  a  sympathy  for  Maud,  who 
was  unused  to  French  ways  and  had  her  hands  full 
enough  of  her  own  problems.  But  that  wasn't  what 
decided  me.  The  truth  is,"  she  put  it  with  all  its  romance, 
"that  I  had  to  do  it.  I  could  no  more  have  lost  the  chance 
than  I  could  have  flown.  If  it  was  providential  for  her 
that  we  should  happen  upon  each  other,  think  what  it 
was  for  me — a  lonely  woman  who  had  begun  to  get 
old " 

"So  you  offered  to  assume  the  position  of  her  guardian 
and  to  have  her  live  with  you?  That  was  the  way  it 
worked  out,  wasn't  it?  And  her  uncle  and  aunt  were  of 
course  ready  to  accept." 

Miss  Morrow  hesitated.  Her  elaborately  dressed  white 
head  was  bent  forward,  and  with  her  brow  furrowed,  and 
from  behind  her  habitual  glasses,  Gushing  could  see  that 
her  look  had  fixed  itself  again  upon  the  central  figure  in 
the  group  across  the  room. 

"No — that  wasn't  quite  it.  I  can't  explain  it  to  you — 
but  she  somehow  made  both  Maud  and  me  feel  that, 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    35 

though  she  knew  it  all  depended  on  us,  it  was  none  the 
less  she  who  decided  she  would  accept.  Oh,  she  was 
everything  docile — everything  the  right  sort  of  child 
would  be.  But  when  I'd  told  her  what  I  wanted  to  do 
for  her,  she  thought  for  a  moment  and  then  made  a  little 
bow  and  said :  'Mademoiselle,  the  circumstances  in  which 
I  find  myself  of  course  make  it  impossible  for  me  to 
refuse  so  great  a  kindness.  I  thank  you  with  all  my 
heart.  I  hope  that  I  may  satisfy  you.' "  She  continued 
to  search  the  object  of  her  scrutiny.  "It  was  charmingly 
done,  of  course.  But  then — and  especially  in  such  a  mite 
of  a  thing — it  was  so  extraordinarily  reserved." 

Gushing  nodded  again,  without  comment.  Miss  Mor- 
row's long  foreign  residence,  he  knew,  had  had  little 
effect  on  the  fact  that  she  came  of  a  generation  highly 
susceptible  to  romance,  and  nothing  could  have  pleased 
her  taste  better  than  the  du  Chastel  story.  He  could  see 
that  the  ending  he  had  provided  was  just  such  a  culmi- 
nation as  she  had  hoped  for.  His  duty  of  attention  to  her 
investments  had  necessarily  extended  into  more  intimate 
matters,  and  each  year  when  he  came  to  Paris  he  had 
divined  that  he  revived  for  her  some  of  the  indefinite 
enthusiasms  of  her  youth  and  that  if  Anne-Marie  repre- 
sented France  for  her  it  was  no  less  true  that  he  repre- 
sented her  own  country.  Perhaps  because  she  had  had 
to  exhibit  him  to  foreign  eyes,  he  had  insensibly  become 
the  person  who,  in  her  estimation,  showed  an  apotheosis 
of  what  America  could  do ;  and  he  could  see  that  a  mar- 
riage between  him  and  her  protegee  had  appeared  to  be 
the  final  one  in  a  series  of  coincidences  which  proved  her 
own  good  taste. 

Yet  the   relationship   which   would   end   with  Anne- 


36  MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

Marie's  marriage  had  not  perhaps  been  without  its  ele- 
ments of  uncertainty ;  and  Gushing  thought,  with  a  gleam 
of  amusement,  that  it  was  probably  by  this  means  that 
his  elderly  friend  had  learned  that  one  could  not  buy  a 
country  and  bring  it  home  to  ornament  one's  drawing 
room.  His  glance  had  strayed  across  the  room  again  as 
he  mused,  and  suddenly  he  caught  the  rise  of  the  eyes  he 
was  looking  for,  the  slow  widening  of  their  lids,  and 
then  the  depth  of  the  message  they  returned  to  him.  It 
had  become  a  secret  pleasure  to  him  in  the  past  weeks 
that  his  meetings  with  Mademoiselle  du  Chastel  were 
so  formal.  No  words  could  have  been  as  expressive  of 
her  feeling  as  these  unexpected  revelations  she  gave  of 
it — the  swift  pressure  of  her  hand,  the  stir  of  her  colour 
or  the  tribute  of  the  happiness  which  lay  like  a  light 
upon  her  face,  as  if  she  continually  assured  him  that  her 
reserve  was  merely  the  exaction  of  a  good  breeding 
which  was  strict  and  exquisite. 

It  had  been  by  such  slight  signs  that  she  had  sketched 
for  him  her  own  view  of  the  history  of  her  life  with 
Miss  Morrow,  and  had  made  it  appear  like  a  delicate 
black-and-white  in  contrast  to  a  too  bright  water  colour. 
Gushing  had  had  revealed  to  him  the  child  she  had  been, 
prematurely  sobered  and  self-contained,  and  the  causes 
which  had  made  her  manner  careful  and  her  smile  dis- 
creet. Her  gratitude  itself,  he  could  guess,  was  so  un- 
failing and  so  correct  that  it  gave  Miss  Morrow  the  im- 
pression that  it  was  not  given  as  feeling  but  as  due  pay- 
ment in  the  exchange  between  them.  Since  gratitude  was 
a  rule  with  people  of  old  and  long-formed  courtesies, 
Anne-Marie  proffered  this  response.  It  had  been  only 
when  she  admitted  to  him  her  relief  that  so  artificial  a 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    37 

situation  would  soon  be  over,  and  her  pleasure  in  the 
fact  that  she  and  her  benefactress  could  now  have  a 
spontaneous  relationship,  that  Gushing  had  measured 
both  her  worldly  wisdom  and  her  desire  to  be  on  close 
terms  with  a  woman  who  had  done  her  so  great  a  kind- 
ness. He  saw  that  she  had  been  incapable  of  submerg- 
ing the  difficulties  of  her  situation  in  a  vague  sentimental- 
ism.  In  spite  of  Miss  Morrow's  generosity,  and  in  spite 
of  her  thankfulness  for  it,  she  had  evidently  used  her 
critical  sense  enough  to  realise  that  all  women  of  middle- 
age  had  their  enthusiasms,  and  that  this  was  only  one  of 
the  forms  of  an  amiable  eccentricity.  On  Miss  Morrow's 
side,  Gushing  could  see  that  the  suspicion  that  Anne- 
Marie  could  baffle  her  had  been  strong  enough  to  prevent 
her  from  following  it  up.  Behind  the  barrier  of  her 
formal  ways,  her  ward  had  yearly  become  stranger  to  her. 
If  Miss  Morrow  could  have  opened  the  door  which  led 
to  Anne-Marie's  inner  world,  he  knew  that  what  would 
have  surprised  her  most  would  have  been  the  simplicity 
she  found  there.  Anne-Marie's  silences  were  perhaps 
partly  due  to  the  fact  that  she  believed  the  older  lady 
too  ingenuous  to  share  her  impressions ;  and  Gushing  felt 
it  all  the  more  his  privilege  that  she  had  shown  him,  step 
by  step,  a  nature  of  such  rich  colours  and  such  a  high 
fastidiousness. 

His  imagination  had  worked  on  these  hints  as  it  had 
worked  on  all  her  reticences ;  and  it  now  seemed  one  of 
the  delightful  signs  of  her  comprehension  that,  even  with 
the  distance  of  the  room  between  them,  she  should  divine 
that  he  could  no  longer  manage  to  be  patient  with  Miss 
Morrow  and  that  she  should  contrive  to  break  up  the 


38    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

group  around  her.  She  came  slowly  across  the  room, 
with  one  of  the  last  ladies  left,  and  as  she  approached 
her  look  assured  him  that  all  this  manipulation  was  for 
him  alone. 

"Done,  you  have  seen  them  all,  so  many  people  ?  What 
a  number  came!  And  here  is  one  more — my  cousin, 
Madame  von  Alfons,  who  has  returned  to  Paris  only 
to-day.  Chere  Mimi,  at  last  I  shall  have  the  pleasure  of 
presenting  to  you  Mr.  Gushing " 

The  lady  beside  her  turned  from  the  tea  table,  where 
she  had  paused  to  speak  to  Miss  Morrow,  and  bowed  to 
Gushing.  The  last  two  hours  had  shown  him  so  many 
strange  faces  that  they  now  seemed  more  or  less  alike; 
but  he  was  instantly  aware,  as  he  confronted  Madame  von 
Alfons,  of  an  impulse  to  pause  and  to  look  at  her  again. 
She  was  the  best  of  that  type  of  which  the  afternoon 
had  presented  many  variants  but  to  which  there  had  been 
no  exceptions ;  what  he  saw  at  once,  indeed,  was  that  she 
was  faintly  like  Anne-Marie,  only  thinner  and  older  and 
with  her  ivory  colour  a  deeper  tone.  There  was  some 
suggestion  about  her  of  what  Anne-Marie  might  be  in  ten 
years — a  product  exceedingly  delicate  and  exceedingly 
astute.  This  perhaps  made  her  arresting  interest;  and 
yet  he  wondered  whether  there  were  not  some  more  defi- 
nite cause  for  his  curiosity.  He  repeated  her  name ;  Anne- 
Marie  and  Miss  Morrow  had  both  mentioned  her — he 
was  clear  as  to  that.  She  had  been  born  a  princess,  a 
daughter  of  the  head  of  Anne-Marie's  mother's  family, 
and  she  had  married  a  Viennese  Jew  of  fabulous  wealth. 
All  this  he  gradually  pieced  together,  fitting  the  informa- 
tion both  to  the  magnificence  of  the  pearls  she  wore  and 
to  the  severe  simplicity  of  her  walking  dress.  Miss  Mor- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    39 

row  had  been  all  eagerness  in  receiving  her ;  but  it  seemed 
to  him  that  it  was  nevertheless  she  concerning  whom 
that  lady  had  hinted  that  there  had  been  incredible  scan- 
dals— incredible,  but  always  subdued  to  the  scrupulous 
French  view  of  the  conventional. 

Anne-Marie  was  meanwhile  explaining  matters  to  him. 
"My  cousin  has  a  great  interest  in  America,  yes.  She 
has  travelled  so  much — but  everywhere,  to  the  east,  the 
north,  in  her  yacht.  She  once  passed  two  months  in  New 
York,  and  she  has  been  telling  me  all  I  shall  find ;  have 
you  not,  Mimi?" 

Madame  von  Alfons  bent  her  smile  on  Gushing,  and 
as  he  caught  it  some  door  in  his  memory  opened.  "You 
have  been  to  America?  But  it's  there,  then,  that  I've 
seen  you!" 

"You  have  seen  her?" 

"I  was  sure  of  it  at  once ;  you  won't  remember, 
madame,  but  I  know  it." 

"But  how  strange !    You  remember,  Mimi  ?" 

Madame  von  Alfons  continued  to  look  at  Gushing,  and 
it  struck  him  with  astonishment  that  for  the  quickest 
instant  the  cleverness  and  significance  of  her  smile  deep- 
ened, as  if  to  assure  him  of  something  unspoken  and 
private,  before  it  resumed  its  immovable  conventionality. 

"Mais  non,  monsieur,"  she  responded,  laying  her  hand 
affectionately  on  Anne-Marie's  arm,  "you  are  mistaken. 
We  have  never  seen  each  other  before.  This  is  my  first 
chance,  too,  to  tell  you  of  my  happiness  in  my  cousin's 
happiness ;  j'en  suis  tellement  contente,  mais  comme  vous 

voyez,  j'ai  si  peu  d'  anglais "  and  she  turned  the  talk 

lightly  to  other  things. 


40    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 


IV 


CUSHING  lay  on  his  back,  in  the  hottest  hour  of  the 
June  morning,  and  looked  up  through  the  inter- 
laced branches  of  apple  trees  at  the  vivid  sky. 

He  had  not  the  acute  perception  of  beauty  which  comes 
from  a  conscious  development  of  appreciation,  but  there 
was  none  the  less  an  irresistible  tendency  in  him  to  live 
by  beauty  and  to  fit  its  outer  manifestations  to  the  forms 
of  his  inner  sentiment.  The  special  charm  of  this  inner 
Normandy  of  broad  white  roads  and  grey  villages,  whose 
verdure  had  the  richness  of  a  country  where  hills  rise 
within  scent  of  the  sea,  had  always  appealed  to  him ;  and 
when  the  question  had  arisen  as  to  where  he  should  take 
Anne-Marie,  after  their  marriage  and  before  their  de- 
parture for  America,  and  they  had  decided  to  come  here, 
the  whole  landscape,  so  sober  and  yet  so  brilliant,  had 
opened  out  before  him  like  a  pale  green  flower  of  per- 
fume and  loveliness.  Madame  von  Alfons  had  lent  them 
her  little  farmhouse,  which  had  originally  been  the  cot- 
tage of  a  garde-chaise  and  which  she  had  arranged  for 
her  use  while  her  husband,  a  few  kilometres  distant,  was 
in  the  glare  of  the  Deauville  races.  Since  it  was  perhaps 
consequent  to  so  contradictory  a  reputation  as  hers  that 
she  should  enjoy  simplicity,  she  had  kept  the  rooms  empty 
of  all  except  the  necessary  comforts,  and  their  sombre 
Norman  aspect  was  lightened  only  by  the  sun  which 
flowed  in  from  the  garden  and  from  the  busy  courtyard. 
The  house  stood  unexpectedly  in  the  midst  of  flat  fields, 
with  its  face  to  the  morning  light  and  deep  apple  orchards 
behind  it,  and  so  far  from  the  road  that  only  the  occa- 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    41 

sional  noise  of  a  distant  motor,  on  its  way  to  the  little 
group  of  villas  which  gathered  at  the  edge  of  the  sea, 
or  the  rumble  of  the  heavy  two-wheeled  carts,  as  they 
passed  from  farm  to  farm,  broke  the  tranquillity  of  the 
hours. 

It  was  another  evidence  of  the  way  in  which  Cushing's 
happiness  affected  him  that  he  felt  in  himself  the  need  to 
be  alone.  He  had  come  out  morning  after  morning  and 
thrown  himself  on  the  grass,  near  enough  to  the  house 
to  hear  the  rise  and  fall  of  Anne-Marie's  voice  through 
the  open  windows,  and  with  his  thoughts  idly  passing 
from  this  sound  up  to  the  black  branches  and  the  lumi- 
nous sky.  It  seemed  to  him  that  a  certain  need  to  detach 
one's  self  necessarily  went  with  such  a  complete  gratifica- 
tion of  all  one's  desires,  and  that  to  close  his  eyes  and 
enjoy  the  pictures  behind  them  of  what  she  was  doing, 
as  she  moved  to  and  fro  in  the  little  rooms,  with  the  pale 
light  falling  on  her  and  the  fresh  smell  of  the  upturned 
earth  of  the  garden  in  the  air,  was  to  feel  her  as  near 
as  if  he  actually  perceived  her. 

He  had  learned,  in  the  last  morning,  that  when  the  sun 
rounded  the  bend  of  a  particular  branch  and  struck 
through  a  new  mass  of  leaves,  so  that  he  had  to  pull  his 
cap  farther  over  his  eyes,  the  pleasure  of  this  lazy  sus- 
pense ended  in  a  deeper  pleasure.  The  sound  of  her  voice 
grew  nearer,  and  he  heard  her  light  tread  pass  first  over 
the  threshold  of  the  door  at  this  end  of  the  house,  then 
over  the  glistening  pebbles  of  the  courtyard,  and  finally 
into  the  long  orchard  grass;  and  each  morning  he  had 
found  himself  smiling  at  the  sense  of  complete  content- 
ment with  which  he  heard  her  approach.  He  had  sup- 
posed that  only  to  men  who  were  younger  or  less  direct 


42    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

with  themselves  there  could  come  this  unreasoning  belief 
in  a  feeling,  as  if  it  were  the  source  and  foundation  of 
existence.  Already  his  marriage  had  made  him  aware 
that  what  he  had  wanted  was  an  incentive  and  an  out- 
let for  the  latent  life  of  the  imagination.  His  great- 
est debt  to  Anne-Marie  was  the  fact  that  she  had  made 
these  hopes,  in  both  their  largest  and  their  most  in- 
timate ways,  seem  so  possible.  The  sense  of  the  hidden 
values  in  his  sentiment  had  never  been  stronger  in  him. 
It  was  not  only  a  means  by  which  he  would  extract  from 
life  the  most  precious  and  intimate  happiness,  but  it  was 
a  widening  and  enlarging  of  all  his  perspectives. 

The  sound  of  Anne-Marie's  feet  in  the  grass  paused 
beside  him,  and  he  felt  her  fresh  hand  laid  against  his 
cheek. 

"My  dear,  I  thought  you  had  gone  away  from  me — yes, 
forever !  But  you  must  have  been  here  for  an  hour !  I 
decided  that  you  had  abandoned  me  and  that  I  should 
have  to  go  back  to  Miss  Morrow.  Imagine !  How  hor- 
rible !  How  can  you  get  through  your  tub  and  your  dress- 
ing so  early?" 

"I  make  the  stupendous  effort  in  order  to  come  out 
here  and  lie  on  my  back  on  the  grass  and  wonder  how  I 
am  ever  to  live  up  to  you." 

"Live  up  to  me!  You  talk  as  if  I  were  a  mind,  a 
moral ;  come,  Paul,  am  I  anything  but  lovely  ?" 

Gushing  watched  the  play  of  the  shadows  across  her 
face.  "No  matter  how  lovely  you  are  I  shall  never  for- 
get that  you're  a  mind  and  a  moral,  as  you  put  it.  It's 
due  you  that  I  shouldn't  forget,  and  so  I  shan't." 

"Ah,  they  make  me  shiver,  minds  and  morals!"  She 
threw  up  her  hands  with  one  of  the  extravagant  gestures 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    43 

with  which,  she  seemed  instinctively  to  know,  he  liked 
her  to  respond  to  his  amused  tenderness.  "Or  no;  I  do 
not  want  you  to  forget  anything  that  is  due  me,  but  only 
to  wish  that  you  could  forget.  Yes  ?  You  understand  ?" 
Then,  as  she  lowered  herself  carefully  to  the  rug  which 
he  had  pulled  from  under  the  tree  for  her,  she  held  up  a 
long  ruffle  of  lace  which  dropped  from  her  shoulder  and 
asked  soberly :  "Did  you  ever  see  anything  so  beautiful  ?" 

"Good  heavens  !"  Gushing  raised  himself  on  his  elbow. 
"What  an  incredible  garment !  A  peignoir,  isn't  it  ?  And 
how  appropriate  to  wear  under  the  trees — lace  and  silk 
and  satin !  I  never  saw  anything  so  delightful !" 

She  was  settling  herself  cautiously  on  her  rug,  with 
the  constraint  of  a  person  who  is  uncomfortable  in  out- 
of-door  surroundings,  and  when  her  eyes  returned  to 
him  they  were  as  serious  as  before.  "Yes,  it  is  perfect — 
de  toute  beaute.  It  is  my  best.  I  have  dreamt  of  it — but 
I  have  dreamt  of  it  since  I  was  a  child." 

"You  mean  you  planned  it?" 

"Ah,  of  course  I  planned  it;  but  I  dreamt  too  of  all 
it  would  mean,  of  what  it  would  stand  for.  When  it 
came  true,  I  knew  I  should  be  married,  established.  I 
knew  it  would  mean  that  at  last  I  had  my  own  life.  A 
peignoir  like  this" — she  fingered  the  lace  again — "it 
stands  for  a  great  deal." 

"I  admit  that  it  has  its  implications,  my  dear." 

She  nodded  gravely  at  his  smile.  "No,  I  am  not  blind 
to  these  things,  as  you  are.  It  is  wonderful  to  me  that 
I  am  free,  that  I  have  the  pleasures  of  independence, 
that  I  am  alone  with  you  here,"  she  waved  her  hand, 
"that  your  money  pays  for  me.  I  like  it  when  the  ser- 
vants are  respectful  to  me — ah,  they  are  respectful  to 


44     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

rich  people! — and  when  my  maid  comes  for  my  orders. 
Miss  Morrow  once  said  that  to  notice  such  things  was 
vulgar;  dear  Miss  Morrow!"  Her  smile  suddenly  suf- 
fused her  face.  "But  how  young  she  is!" 

Gushing  watched  her  for  a  moment.  With  each  step 
which  he  took  into  her  character,  if  he  had  found  some- 
thing strange  he  had  also  found  something  delightful, 
as  if  a  new  set  of  perceptions  must  indeed  be  ac- 
quired in  order  to  deal  with  her,  but  which  had  their 
reward  in  the  revelation  of  her  fine  adjustments  and  her 
lovely  possibilities.  It  had  been  something  of  a  comedy 
to  him  to  see  that  to  Miss  Morrow  this  recognition  of 
marriage  as  the  crucial  experience,  and  Anne-Marie's 
practical  view  of  the  superiority  she  would  assume  as  a 
married  woman,  had  reached  a  point  of  frankness  which 
was  indelicate.  He  himself  had  understood  that  to  be 
so  beautifully  schooled  to  a  correct  appearance  meant 
the  very  genius  of  the  situation.  It  was  somehow  a  result 
of  the  success  with  which  she  managed  things  that  she 
should  show  him  not  only  what  she  could  give  him  but 
also  his  own  capacity  to  respond  to  so  naturally  per- 
fected an  art.  She  could  be  restful  and  stimulating, 
uncertain  and  reassuring.  Her  very  enthusiasm  was  the 
enthusiasm  of  a  person  of  strict  form  and  high  elegance, 
and  it  was  increased,  even  in  their  happiest  moments,  by 
her  retention  of  her  reticence,  and  all  this  with  no  more 
change  in  the  smooth  flow  of  his  contentment  than  the 
tremulous  light  on  the  fresh  grass  marked  a  change  in 
the  steady  gold  of  the  sun. 

His  answer  to  his  thoughts  was  to  bend  forward  to 
draw  her  closer  to  him,  but  she  slipped  out  of  the  re- 
straint of  his  arm  and  motioned  him  back. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    45 

"No,  I  must  ask  you  something.  There  is  something  I 
should  like  to  know.  Have  you  cared  for  many  women  ?" 

"My  dear  child,"  he  hesitated ;  "what  put  such  a  ques- 
tion into  your  head?" 

"Ah,  but  it  is  a  reasonable  question.  We  have  been 
married  for  more  than  a  month,  and  in  another  fortnight 
we  start  for  la-bas,  for  the  other  side  of  the  world.  We 
cease  to  sit  about  on  the  grass  like  children ;  we  begin  to 
live.  What  do  you  think  marriage  is?  For  a  woman, 
my  dear,  it  is  a  very  sensible  affair ;  it  is  planned  and  or- 
dered. I  want  to  know  what  I  have  to  confront." 

Gushing  smiled.  "Well,  then,  no ;  I've  not  often  cared 
for  women." 

"Why  not?  After  all,  my  dear,  you  must  admit  that 
you  have  a  rare  charm;  a  definite,  an  unusual  charm. 
Your  distinction,  your  indifference,  the  way  you  use  your 
nice  hands,  which  are  thin  and  brown — just  as  a  man's 
hands  should  be — why  not,  then?" 

"Because,  if  you  want  to  know  the  truth,  women  have 
usually  bored  me." 

"But  how  could  they  bore  one !"  she  exclaimed. 

"I  don't  know  whether  it  was  their  fault  or  mine,  I 
admit.  But  they  bored  me ;  so  I  waited  for  my  real  love 
affair  to  be  you." 

"You  mean,"  she  corrected  him,  "that  you  waited  more 
or  less." 

"More  or  less."  Cushing's  shoulders  rose  and  fell. 
"All  men  are  sometimes  fools,  and  I've  been  no  excep- 
tion." 

"But  did  you  never  have  a  love  affair  with  a  woman 
for  whom  you  cared?" 

"No — I  can't  call  it  caring." 


46     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"Why  not?" 

"One  doesn't  always  do  those  things,"  he  hesitated 
again,  "because  one  cares.  Sometimes  one  does  them 
from  habit — sometimes  from  indifference." 

"But  how  strange  not  to  care!"  she  broke  out.  "If  it 
were  a  person  for  whom  one  could  care,  I  should  think  it 
would  be  so  much  more  amusing.  Ah,  how  extraor- 
dinary"— she  drew  back  to  get  a  better  look  at  him — 
"always  to  be  ashamed  of  one's  self!" 

"How  extraordinary,"  he  retorted  affectionately,  "not 
to  have  the  standards  which  make  one  ashamed  of  one's 
self!" 

She  waited  again  for  a  moment,  with  her  smile  flicker- 
ing as  delicately  as  the  sunlight  on  her  face.  "But  no.  I 
might  have  known  it  from  your  character.  You  Amer- 
icans have  not  the  vices  of  more  developed  people;  and 
you,  you  probably  go  no  further  than  the  American  form 
of  vice — a  wife.  But  suppose  I  do  not  want  to  be  a 
vice?" 

Gushing  laid  his  hand  on  hers.  "You  mean  you  wane 
me  to  understand  that  you're  everything  rare  and  won- 
derful? Oh,  I  don't  suppose  it's  easy  to  make  the  ad- 
justments women  have  to  make.  We're  such  stupid 
brutes " 

Her  eyes  opened.  "But,  on  the  contrary,  those  adjust- 
ments are  exceedingly  sensible.  Of  course  I  thought  of 
such  things  before  my  marriage.  Every  young  girl  does. 
But  you  must  remember  the  impeccable  attitude  which  is 
demanded  of  us.  Our  innocence  itself — that  too  is 
trained."  She  shook  a  twig  carefully  from  her  lap.  "I 
knew  what  one  has  to  deal  with  in  all  men;  and  I  sus- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    47 

pected — I  must  do  myself  that  credit — what  I  should 
have  to  deal  with  in  you." 

Gushing  was  obscurely  aware  that  it  was  the  sugges- 
tion of  her  look  which  brought  the  blood  to  his  own  face. 
"In  me!"  he  spoke  gravely.  "Then,  my  dear,  you  must 
have  foreseen  that  you'd  have  to  deal  with  every  con- 
ceivable and  possible  loyalty." 

"Ah,  yes,  yes!  That  is  true!"  She  smiled  again.  "I 
foresaw,  too,  that  that  would  be  your  answer!  That,  I 
think,  considering  my  lack  of  experience,  was  asses 
adroit e!  Men  are  not  women,  and  it  would  be  too  foolish 
to  deny  it.  And  the  reason  that  I  ask  you  such  questions 
is  because,  voyez  vous,  I  am  determined  not  to  deny  it." 

Gushing  still  kept  his  hand  on  hers.  "It's  wonderful 
of  you  to  be  so  understanding;  yet  I'd  rather,  I  think, 
have  you  less  understanding — I'd  rather  have  you  demand 
everything  of  me." 

"Ah,  but,  my  dear,  I  do!  I  demand  everything  as  I 
expect  you  to  demand  everything — to  demand  that  I 
shall  treat  you  with  a  perfect  consideration,  that  I  shall 
give  you  the  children  you  want,  that  I  shall  found  a 
family." 

"And  yet  you  expect " 

"I  expect  everything!"  she  declared,  yet  the  reserva- 
tions of  her  face  were  persistent.  "And  at  the  same 
time  I  expect  nothing.  Come,  Paul,  be  reasonable!  I 
am  talking  the  vaguest  generalities.  I  do  not  do  so  for 
my  own  information — believe  me,  I  am  incapable  of  that 
vulgarity.  I  do  it  rather  for  yours." 

"For  mine?  But,  my  child,  the  information  I  want 
about  you — the  information  I  need — is  the  information 
I  get  from  caring  for  you  and  having  you  care  for  me." 


48     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"That  is  of  course  true ;  and  yet  I  want  you  to  know," 
she  said  clearly,  "that — let  us  say  that  I  am  a  little  more 
human  than  your  theory  supposes  one  to  be.  Yes.  You 
are  charming  to  me,  my  dear ;  but  so  often,  later  in  life, 
in  certain  conditions  certain  things  have  to  arrange  them- 
selves; and  I  want  you  to  know,  if  such  a  thing  should 
ever  happen " 

While  he  listened  Gushing  had  been  conscious  of  his 
inclination  to  smile.  It  was  his  instinctive  way  of  dis- 
posing of  the  mental  questions  she  raised.  Yet  some- 
thing urged  him  to  prove  to  her  the  point  behind  her 
suppositious  generosity. 

"I  see !  I  keep  forgetting  that  you've  been  brought  up 
in  ways  which  still  seem  to  me  fictional !  It's  you  who 
are  charming ;  at  least,  it's  you  who  mean  to  be  charming. 
But  according  to  my  code,  you're  not." 

"I  am  not?  I  am  not  considerate?  Ah,  but  lack  of 
consideration •" 

"It's  what  you  most  abhor;  I  know  that.  My  view  of 
consideration  is  that  you  haven't  got  to  concede  but  to 
demand.  I  want  you  to  be  content  with  nothing  short 
of  the  best.  It'll  be  an  imperfect  best,  so  far  as  I  go — 
that  I'll  admit.  But  I  want  you  to  expect  it,  to  make  me 
feel  you  expect  it.  Don't  you  see?"  He  paused  for  a 
moment  and  looked  away  from  her,  through  the  orchard, 
to  the  shining  fields  beyond.  "The  way  to  consummate 
a  feeling  like  ours  is  to  live  up  to  it ;  and  whatever  one's 
mistakes — and,  heavens  knows,  I've  in  my  life  made  mis- 
takes— there's  one  thing  one  can't  let  go,  and  that's  the 
element  of  high  spiritual  distinction :  the  element,"  his 
eyes  turned  back  to  her,  with  a  smile,  "that  you  look  like 
but  that  you  don't  always  talk  like." 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    49 

"But  that — that  is  pure  imagination!" 

"Pure  imagination!  But  what's  the  fun  of  life  with- 
out pure  imagination  ?" 

"I  find  it  fun,"  she  retorted,  "and  I  am  totally  without 
pure  imagination !" 

"Totally ;  but  it's  enough,  my  dear  angel,  that  you  in- 
spire it  in  me.  When  one's  got  the  thing  you've  given 
me,  the  thing  that's  infinitely  precious  and  rare " 

"So  precious  and  rare,"  she  spoke  lightly,  "that  it  does 
not  have  to  be  competently  managed  ?" 

She  had  risen  as  she  spoke,  and  as  her  glance  slanted 
down  at  Gushing  he  felt  the  slightest  start  of  discomfort. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  it  had  the  kind  of  disconcerting 
astuteness  which  one  found  only  in  the  child  or  in  the 
person  of  a  highly  finished  and  profound  maturity. 


SEVERAL  times  Gushing  had  turned  up  and  down 
the  long  drawing  room,  back  from  the  accumulating 
autumn  twilight  which  darkened  the  windows  to  the  pools 
of  amber  lamp-light  and  the  shifting  glow  of  the  fire. 

His  sister  had  telegraphed  him  that  she  would  come  to 
them  directly  from  her  train;  and  while  he  waited  he 
was  conscious  for  the  first  time  of  the  protraction  of  his 
sense  of  suspense.  He  had  understood  the  reasons  which 
had  prompted  her  to  prolong  until  now  the  long  western 
trip  she  had  been  making.  It  was  like  her  instinctive  gen- 
erosity to  give  Anne-Marie  time  to  accustom  herself  to 
America  and  to  her  new  surroundings  before  taking  up 
the  more  difficult  problem  of  personal  relations.  Yet 


50    MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

the  changes  of  the  past  two  or  three  months  had  made 
him  see  more  intimate  reasons  in  this  consideration.  In 
spite  of  his  close  sense  of  family  ties  he  had  viewed  them 
collectively  rather  than  individually,  and  the  affection 
which  he  had  accepted  from  Mrs.  Sale  as  a  foregone  con- 
clusion had  only  lately  begun  to  have  its  own  lights  and 
shadings. 

Gushing  and  his  sister  had  had  to  draw  them  together 
not  only  their  affection  and  his  admiration  for  her  acute, 
dominant  qualities,  but  also  the  fact  that  he  had  been 
the  only  person  to  share  her  private  difficulties.  He 
had  never  satisfactorily  explained  to  himself  the  mis- 
chance of  what  had  promised  to  be  so  brilliant  a  life  or 
the  reasons  why  a  person  of  such  keen  intelligence  should 
have  committed  the  commonest  of  errors.  He  could  only 
call  it  some  fatal  lack  of  discrimination  that  had  allowed 
her  to  waste  her  rare  promise  in  a  marriage  which  had 
been  a  failure  less  tragic  than  trite  and  commonplace. 
The  matter  had  been  most  inexplicable  of  all,  he  guessed, 
to  Mrs.  Sale  herself.  As  he  had  watched  the  successive 
stages  of  the  unhappy  affair,  he  had  imagined  the  galling 
difficulty  she  must  experience  in  being  tied  for  life,  not 
to  her  mistake — since  her  divorce  made  that  revocable — 
but  to  the  consciousness  of  having  committed  it.  She 
had  done  her  best  to  be  content,  at  first,  as  her  brother 
divined,  by  insisting  to  herself  that  her  husband  was 
adequate,  and  later  by  not  minding  that  he  was  not  so; 
and  when  she  was  finally  confronted  by  the  gap  between 
her  ideal  and  Sale's  neat  inanity,  there  had  been  nothing 
for  it  but  the  most  summary  ending.  Gushing  was  left 
with  the  sense  that  the  history  of  the  marriage,  down  to 
its  final  scene  in  a  court  room,  verged  upon  travesty. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    51 

Its  only  practical  result  appeared  to  be  the  ungrammatical 
music-hall  girl  whose  generosities  gave  his  sister  her  free- 
dom, and  Sale  had  contaminated  even  its  pathos  with 
something  of  his  own  suggestion  of  caricature. 

He  had  admired  both  the  patience  and  the  pluck  with 
which,  after  her  divorce,  Mrs.  Sale  had  set  herself  to  re- 
construct her  interests.  She  had  made  herself  an  inde- 
pendent life,  as  she  had  insisted  that  she  must  have 
an  independent  home,  and  she  had  absorbed  herself  in 
the  various  activities  of  the  day  with  some  conspicuous 
success.  If  he  could  not  always  agree  with  her  propa- 
ganda, it  had  touched  the  spring  of  Cushing's  sympa- 
thies that  when  they  applied  to  him  all  her  ideas  resumed 
an  old-fashioned  rigidity.  There  was  ingrained  in  her 
a  respect  for  the  opinion  of  the  man  of  her  family,  which 
marked  him  as  an  exception  and  exempt  from  general 
rules.  He  had  indeed  accused  her  of  creating  for  him 
an  ideal  character,  the  slightest  variation  of  whose  opin- 
ion affected  her.  But  he  was  none  the  less  dependent 
upon  a  devotion  so  completely  without  a  trace  of  petty 
reservation,  and  it  had  added  to  his  sympathy  that  his 
sister  had  failed  where  he  was  confident  of  so  signal  a 
success. 

He  had  never  questioned  the  worth  of  what  she  meant 
to  him  and  the  assurance  of  how  deep  and  affectionate 
an  understanding.  But  it  was  perhaps  the  influence  of 
contact  with  an  alien  standpoint  that  he  should  find, 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  that  his  curiosity  was  stirred 
about  his  established  relationships.  He  had  ceased  to 
accept  as  inevitable  that  to  which  he  had  become  accus- 
tomed. All  that  he  had  taken  for  granted  in  his  sister's 
case  had  lately  appeared  to  him  questionable.  Her  inter- 


52  MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

ests  had  seemed  more  forced,  her  attitude  towards  life 
more  artificial,  and  her  divorce  less  a  matter  of  tragedy 
than  of  bad  taste.  Each  time  he  now  approached  Anne- 
Marie's  chair  beside  the  fire,  where  she  sat  waiting  with 
the  peculiarly  erect  motionlessness  which  she  found  it 
so  easy  to  maintain,  he  caught  himself  smiling  at  the  idea 
of  how  perfectly  her  attitude  expressed  the  persistent 
influence  of  her  inexorable  standards. 

He  and  his  wife  had  arrived  in  New  York  in  the 
warmest  part  of  an  oppressive  July;  and  after  a  week 
or  so  at  his  office,  necessary  after  so  protracted  an  ab- 
sence, Gushing  had  taken  her  off,  this  time  for  a  trip 
to  the  northwestern  coast  and  through  the  Canadian 
Rockies.  He  had  been  aware  that  this  constant  travel  kept 
Anne-Marie  somewhat  in  the  mental  attitude  of  the 
tourist.  Indeed,  when  they  again  reached  New  York  she 
looked  at  its  reviving  autumn  life  with  much  the  same 
dispassionate  astonishment  as  she  had  looked  at  the  wide 
flow  of  prairie  from  the  windows  of  the  train. 

He  had  been  prepared  to  have  her  dislike  some  of 
the  conditions  which  confronted  her  and  to  grant  the 
difficulty  of  the  change  from  the  mellowed  brilliancy  of 
Paris  to  the  cruder  brilliancy  here.  One  could  scarcely 
expect  a  person  of  her  training  to  be  interested  in  the 
underlying  qualities  which  made  that  brilliancy  so  real — 
its  energy,  its  originality,  and  the  vigorous  confidence 
with  which  it  pursued  its  purposes.  But  what  he  had  not 
foreseen  was  that  she  would  be  satisfied  to  accept  her 
impressions  as  final  and  to  let  the  matter  go  at  that.  The 
lack  of  a  certain  breadth  of  imagination  in  her  carried 
her  no  farther  than  the  facts  that  the  climate  was  too 
stimulating  and  the  streets  undecorated  and  without 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    53 

gaiety.  Gushing  had  watched  his  countrywomen  adapt 
themselves  to  the  habits  of  life  of  various  parts  of  Europe 
as  easily  as  to  its  accents  and  its  manners,  and  the  perfec- 
tion of  his  wife's  unadaptability  gave  the  strongest 
flavour  to  her  own  localisms. 

His  family  had  lived  in  New  York  for  several  genera- 
tions, and  always  in  an  atmosphere  of  old-fashioned  prej- 
udices which  varied  as  little  as  the  contiguous  brown 
houses  of  which  theirs  was  one.  Yet  the  fact  that  these 
prejudices  had  been  definite  and  sustained  had  given  him 
some  sympathy  for  them,  and  he  had  come,  as  he  ex- 
plained to  Anne-Marie,  to  have  a  certain  tolerant  friendli- 
ness for  what  stood  out  against  any  mere  transiency  of  ef- 
fect. "If  you  look  in  that  way  at  all  they  left  behind  them, 
even  these  old  things  become  so  likable!"  he  said,  when 
he  was  first  showing  her  around  his  house.  "My  grand- 
mother and  my  mother,  I  remember  well,  would  never 
have  anything  but  the  very  plainest  and  the  very  best. 
When  one  sees  the  pretentiousness  of  to-day  one's  grate- 
ful for  such  narrowness.  Edith's  never  felt  about  it  as 
I  have;  when  she  arranged  her  own  house  she  gathered 
together  all  sorts  of  strange  things — it's  a  kind  of  Ameri- 
canised Miss  Morrow's.  You'll  see!  Any  woman  bred 
in  New  York  considers  all  this  too  inexcusably  provincial. 
But  somehow  I've  always  thought  that  it  would  be  rather 
stupid  if  I  changed  it.  When  one  has  to  look  at  such 
grotesque  ornaments  and  such  surprising  twists  and  turns 
to  the  furniture,  it's  bad  enough,  I  confess.  The  sudden 
and  the  fantastic  seem  to  have  been  their  only  forms  of 
humour,  poor  dears.  But  after  all,  it  has  its  quality." 

She  had  agreed,  in  her  gravest  way,  and  a  moment  later 


54    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

she  interrupted  her  silent  appraisal  to  say:  "Of  course 
it  is  very  middle  class." 

"Oh,  Anne-Marie,  you  delicious  creature!" 

"Why  ?  To  admit  one's  class  ?  But  class  is  so  obvious  ! 
One  of  my  great-grandmothers  was  absolutely  of  the 
bourgeois  type,  absolutely.  If  you  were  an  aristocrat 
like  me,  my  dear,  you  would  not  mind  your  bourgeois 
blood." 

"Oh,  as  for  me,  I  rather  like  such  stolidity ;  but  if  you 

accused  an  American  woman  of  the  same  thing ! 

You  see,  we've  a  different  scale  here." 

"Ah,  yes.  You  are  so  tortuous,  so  inexact."  She  be- 
came thoughtful  again,  and  then  she  made  a  wide  ges- 
ture which  seemed  definitely  to  dispose  of  the  sombre,  up- 
holstered interior.  "But  the  undeniable  thing  is  that 
your  taste  is  correct  here — or  your  sense  of  fitness.  No, 
I  have  considered  it  carefully,  and  we  must  not  change 
it.  It  is  ugly — yes;  but  it  has,  as  you  say,  its  quality,  it 
forms  a  consistent  whole.  It  is  the  best  American,  the 
best  New  York.  We  must  not  forget  that.  It  perfectly 
matches  your  traditions."  Suddenly  she  had  interrupted 
her  evident  appraisal  and  had  wheeled  around,  her  face 
suffused  with  amusement.  "The  dear  place !  But  it  is  so 
naive  that  it  is  shocking!" 

"Oh,  come,  my  child!"  he  had  protested.  "You  shall 
make  it  whatever  you  please." 

She  closed  the  matter  with  one  of  the  turns  which  so 
surprised  him.  "Not  at  all ;  it  is  not  what  I  please.  You 
are  the  person  to  make  such  decisions." 

The  fact  that  he  could  so  little  foresee  even  her  con- 
cessions had  struck  Gushing  as  specially  strange.  She 
was  less  puzzling  to  him  when  her  contradictions  were 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    55 

palpable  and  amusing  than  in  the  irrelevance  of  her  sur- 
renders to  his  point  of  view.  He  expected  her  to  be 
young  and  self-imposing  when  she  drew  aside  with  the 
finest  courtesy;  he  expected  to  see  her  laugh  when  she 
was  obtuse  and  bored  when  she  was  amused.  This  dis- 
crepancy between  her  and  his  prediction  appeared  at  first 
only  another  form  of  her  variegated  charm.  Yet  grad- 
ually he  had  begun  to  feel  what  fundamental  views  her 
light  comments  expressed,  and  that  whatever  arrangement 
she  made  to  fit  herself  to  her  surroundings  was  not  made 
because  she  was  either  sympathetic  or  indifferent  but  be- 
cause of  the  politeness  which  she  owed  to  him. 

The  sound  of  a  motor  stopping  at  the  house  broke  in 
on  his  reflection.  As  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  door,  ready 
to  welcome  his  sister,  his  final  glance  around  him  seemed 
to  give  the  touch  of  actuality  to  the  changes  which  Mrs. 
Sale  must  see.  Outwardly  they  were  as  elusive  as  the 
way  in  which  the  ugly  old  rooms  had  caught  the  infec- 
tion of  Anne-Marie's  glow  and — he  could  have  fancied 
— the  way  in  which  they  smiled  lightly  at  the  process  of 
their  initiation.  The  lace  scarf  here,  the  blue  and  gold 
folios  there,  the  cushion  for  her  feet,  the  brass  jar  which 
bloomed  into  yellow  roses,  the  soft  pinks  and  mauves  of 
the  autumn  cosmos,  which  she  had  so  carefully  placed  be- 
hind her  habitual  seat,  were  more  suggestive  of  the 
Parisian  elegance  than  of  such  a  planned  and  decorative 
whole  as  his  sister's  own  drawing  room.  The  light  trick 
of  transformation  was  as  inexplicable  as  the  appearance 
his  wife  presented,  as  she  turned  expectantly  from  the 
fire  to  face  the  door.  Alert  and  yet  with  her  indisputable 
air  of  self-containment,  she  had  none  the  less  points  in 
her  face  curiously  at  variance  with  each  other.  Her  nose 


56    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

tilted  too  sharply  and  in  the  uncertain  light  her  skin  was 
sallow.  If  she  managed  to  give  a  definite  impression  of 
beauty,  it  was  rather  the  beauty  which  comes  from  a  care- 
fully related  and  artistic  whole.  The  light  in  her  hair, 
the  finish  of  her  dress,  the  match  between  the  colour  of 
her  hands  and  the  gardenia  with  which  she  had  caught 
up  a  fall  of  yellowish  lace,  were  all  equal  parts  of  the 
composition.  Every  detail  about  her  had  the  same  love- 
liness, but  it  was  a  loveliness  as  minutely  planned  and 
fitting  as  closely  together  as  the  links  of  the  little  dia- 
mond bracelet  which  slipped  over  her  wrist.  The  con- 
tradiction in  his  situation  struck  Gushing  with  sudden 
acuity.  He  knew  less  of  his  wife  as  he  knew  her  better, 
and  a  closer  view  of  her  was  only  an  elaboration  of  the 
extraordinary  compound  of  her  complexity  and  her  sim- 
plicity. 

Mrs.  Sale  had  seated  herself  opposite  Anne-Marie,  at 
the  outer  edge  of  the  illuminated  circle  the  fire  drew 
about  the  hearth,  where  the  light  fell  becomingly  upon 
her  upright  figure  and  on  the  definite  lines  of  white  in  her 
black  hair. 

She  began,  with  her  quick  ease,  to  tell  them  about  her 
journey  and  about  the  lateness  of  the  trains;  and  while 
he  listened  and  returned  the  affectionate  understanding 
of  the  smile  she  from  time  to  time  turned  to  him,  Gush- 
ing had  caught  himself  wondering  how  Anne-Marie's  wel- 
come would  strike  her.  Nothing  could  have  been  less  ef- 
fusive, as  he  dryly  observed,  than  its  cordiality.  He 
knew  that  it  was  one  of  the  weaknesses  of  Mrs.  Sale's 
type  of  self-confidence  that  if  she  were  not  convinced  of 
the  inerrancy  of  her  judgments  she  was  nevertheless  con- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    57 

vinced  of  the  inerrancy  of  her  standards.  By  these  Anne- 
Marie  must  until  now  have  shown  herself  so  amenable 
and  self-effacing  that  he  could  fancy  it  must  have  been 
difficult  to  imagine  her  as  different  from  what  she  had 
been  in  the  rue  de  Bellechasse,  where  his  sister  had  often 
seen  her,  and  where  she  had  been  so  ready  to  slip  in  or 
out  of  the  drawing  room,  as  Miss  Morrow  preferred. 
But  in  all  that  did  not  concern  herself  Mrs.  Sale  was 
sharply  observant;  and  Gushing  could  see  the  inevita- 
bility of  her  conclusion  that  Anne-Marie's  manner  meant 
expression  rather  than  feeling.  While  their  talk  extended 
over  the  events  of  the  first  months,  their  western  trip, 
their  return  to  New  York  and  the  latest  news  from  Miss 
Morrow,  his  wife's  light  smile  maintained  a  detachment 
which  made  progress  increasingly  difficult.  Though  his 
sister  could  try  no  subject  to  which  she  did  not  get  a 
response,  the  response  went  no  further  than  a  polite 
exclamation,  and  he  had  to  grant,  ironic  as  it  seemed,  that 
there  were  moments  when  Anne-Marie  was  neither  more 
nor  less  than  dull. 

Mrs.  Sale  had  tried  to  turn  from  this  somewhat 
strained  interchange  of  generalities,  and  as  she  put  down 
her  tea  cup  she  bent  forward  to  lay  her  hand  affection- 
ately on  the  younger  woman's.  "If  I  could  tell  you  how 
much  all  this  means  to  me !  In  my  own  life  it  will  make 
all  the  difference  possible  that  Paul's  settled  and  happy. 
You  see  I've  debts  that  I  too  owe  you !" 

"Ah,  you!  But  you  are  the  woman  whom  of  all 
others  he  thinks  most  wonderful !"  Anne-Marie  regarded 
her  attentively.  "He  says  you  are  so  clever,  so  cultured ; 
that  you  have  such  a  talent  for  management!  How  can 
I  be  courageous  enough  to  succeed  you  ?  And  you  know 


58    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

so  much — about  music,  about  pictures,  about  everything. 
Music — ah,  how  superb  it  is,  is  it  not?  And  then  he  so 
enormously  admires  the  way  you  arrange  your  hair." 

Mrs.  Sale  turned  to  share  Cushing's  laugh.  But  she 
had  plainly  determined  to  make  her  own  position  clear, 
and  she  lightly  refused  to  let  any  such  graciousness,  even 
when  it  was  introduced  with  this  irrelevancy,  obscure 
the  issue.  "I  want  you  to  like  me,  my  dear,  but  I  don't 
want  you  to  think  me  extraordinary — for  I'm  not;  and 
I  don't  want  you,  above  all,  to  bother  about  me.  There's 
one  privilege  I  reserve  in  turn,  and  that's  to  let  you  alone. 
We'll  do  things  together,  whenever  you  want ;  but  we'll 
try  to  make  friends  on  an  independent  basis.  That's  after 
all  the  sensible  way,  isn't  it?" 

Anne-Marie's  response  again  suggested  her  faint  sur- 
prise. She  was  evidently  not  impressed  by  a  generosity 
of  attitude  because  her  own  code  saw  no  necessity  for 
it.  She  thanked  Mrs.  Sale  for  her  consideration.  "I 
want  to  have  you  like  me,  above  everything ;  ah,  yes.  But 
you  must  remember  how  little  I  know.  You  American 
women  are  so  intelligent.  I,  too,  I  want  to  be  intelligent ; 
but  I  do  not  believe  I  shall  ever  accomplish  it — no,  Paul, 
have  you  not  often  warned  me  that  I  shall  never  accom- 
plish it?"  Her  words  trailed  off,  and  all  Cushing's  per- 
ceptions suddenly  sprang  to  meet  the  message  of  the 
look  she  cast  at  him — a  look  which  was  like  a  visible  pul- 
sation of  the  current  of  feeling  between  them.  A  second 
later  she  had  reverted,  with  all  her  ease,  to  Mrs.  Sale. 
"But  you  are  not  going?  Ah,  it  was  so  infinitely  good  of 
you  to  come  at  once,  to  give  us  even  this  glimpse  of  you, 
on  your  way  from  the  station." 

Mrs.  Sale  rose  and  drew  her  furs  around  her  shoulders. 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    59 

Gushing  noticed  the  silent  appraisal  of  the  look  with 
which  her  eyes  rested  on  the  size  and  lustre  of  the  pearls 
around  Anne-Marie's  throat.  She  then  turned  to  give 
him  another  smile,  and  pressed  his  hand.  "Well,  if  you 
continue  to  succeed  with  Paul  as  you've  already  succeeded 
you'll  have  accomplished  enough !  Only  remember  that  I 
beg  for  all  the  time  you  can  spare  me.  I'm  alone  at  home 
so  much — busy  people  always  are ;  and  whenever  you  can 
run  in " 

Anne-Marie's  eyes  rested  on  hers  with  a  grave  atten- 
tion. "But  this  winter,  as  I  understand,  you  will  have 
a  friend  more  or  less  with  you.  My  cousin  Madame  von 
Alfons  saw  a  lady  in  Paris,  a  few  months  ago,  who  said 
she  would  be  constantly  visiting  you  during  the  winter. 
She  has,  I  believe,  no  pied-a-terre  of  her  own.  Mimi  told 
me  of  it;  her  name,  I  think,  is  Mrs.  Herring." 

"Geraldine  ?  Yes,  I  did  write  her,  to  Paris,  to  make  her 
headquarters  with  me;"  Mrs.  Sale  again  confronted 
Gushing,  as  she  replied;  and  it  struck  him  for  a  per- 
ceptible instant  that  she  was  arrested,  as  he  was,  by  the 
indescribably  light  implications  in  Anne-Marie's  tone. 
"Did  you  know,  Paul — did  I  write  you  of  it?" 

Gushing  took  the  time  to  return  her  look  fully.  "No ; 
but  I'm  exceedingly  glad.  Edith's  one  fault,  you  see," 
he  turned  to  Anne-Marie,  "is  that  she's  not  amused  except 
by  the  serious ;  and  Geraldine  has  known  her  long 

enough  to  rouse  her  out  of  any  apathy "  His  eyes 

now  held  his  wife's,  and  again  in  the  same  elusive  way, 
he  felt  as  if  there  took  place  between  all  three  of  them 
an  exchange  of  swift  but  undeniable  meaning. 

"But  what  a  privilege  such  a  friend  must  be !"  Anne- 
Marie  spoke  with  the  most  assured  lightness.  "Yet  you 


60    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

will  remember,  my  dear  Edith,  will  you  not?  that  one's 
friends  are  not  one's  family,  and  you  will  let  Paul  and 
me  come  to  you  constantly — yes?  And  about  the  things 
Miss  Morrow  and  I  selected  in  Paris  for  you;  if  you 
knew  my  uncertainty  about  one  of  the  wraps!" 


VI 


T  "K  THEN  Gushing  came  back  to  the  drawing  room, 
V  V  after  bidding  his  sister  good-bye,  he  saw  that 
Anne-Marie  had  risen  and  stood  looking  down  into  the 
wood  fire.  It  was  one  of  her  habits  of  meditation  to 
stand  with  her  elbow  on  the  mantel  and  her  eyes  bent 
on  the  spirals  of  slowly  ascending  smoke.  He  was  so 
fast  becoming  sensitive  to  her  briefest  mood  that  he 
felt  at  once  something  unusual  in  her  air.  Yet  he  was 
none  the  less  conscious  that,  for  the  first  time,  he  paused 
before  going  forward  to  draw  her  to  him. 

"You're  tired  ?" 

"No,  no.  How  charming  Edith  is ;  and  how  charming 
she  was  to  me!  All  the  praises  you  gave  her — but  they 
were  not  nearly  enough.  She  has  such  distinction — such 
a  special  quality."  She  turned  to  face  him  and  she  con- 
tinued to  look  directly  at  him,  as  if  she  were  sure  he 
would  understand  that  these  preliminaries  were  merely  a 
sign  of  her  constant  observance  of  good  form.  "But  there 
is  something  I  want  to  say  to  you.  I  want  to  ask  you 
if  you  still  feel  as  you  felt  when  we  talked  it  over  in 
Normandy — I  mean,  if  you  still  feel  as  you  felt,"  she 
ended,  "where  the  question  of  other  women  is  concerned." 

Gushing  had   kept   his   eyes   steadily   on    her   as   she 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL  61 

spoke.  The  perfection  of  her  ease,  as  well  as  the  im- 
permeable assurance  of  her  glance,  had  not  obscured 
the  issue  for  him,  as  they  might  have  obscured  it  when 
he  understood  her  less  well,  or  lessened  his  sense  of 
the  definite  direction  she  was  pursuing.  With  a  quick 
reversion  of  thought  he  compared  her  attitude  now  with 
her  former  attitude — an  attitude  which,  in  spite  of  the 
suspicion  he  had  already  had  of  the  depth  of  hidden 
causes  in  her,  had  been  in  so  many  ways  young  and 
pliant. 

"Dear  Anne-Marie,  what  have  such  things  got  to  do 
with  you?" 

"But  that  is  just  what  I  want  to  know,"  she  said  easily. 

"I  don't  understand;  you  want  to  know  exactly  what? 
You  want  to  know  if  every  smallest  part  of  my  life  is 
given  to  you  ?  But  it's  too  absurd !"  He  broke  into  im- 
patience. "You  know  too  well  the  way  I  care.  It's  a 
thing  not  to  be  said  but  to  be  felt." 

"Ah,  but  you  see  that  I  distrust  them,  those  things 
which  are  easier  to  feel  than  to  say!  What  I  want  to 
know — what,  you  will  understand,  in  my  position  as 
your  wife  I  must  know — "  she  pursued  steadily — "is 
whether  you  seriously  meant  what  you  said." 

Gushing  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "If  you  require  ex- 
planations, I  suppose  I  must  give  them.  It  seems  to  me 
unnecessary  to  dignify  such  suggestions  by  talking  of 
them ;  and  how  they  could  ever  affect  you " 

"My  dear  Paul,  nothing  has  affected  me.  I  knew  very 
well  when  we  married  that  nothing  existed  which  could 
affect  me."  Her  face  had  sharpened  to  an  even  closer 
attention.  "I  knew  that  you  would  not  have  married 
unless  you  had  been  definitely  free." 


62    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"Definitely  free !"  He  broke  off.  "But  don't  you 

understand  that  if  I  hadn't  been,  or  if  there  had  been 
the  smallest  reservation  worth  telling,  I  should  have  told 
you?" 

She  took  him  up  quickly.  "You  would  have  told  me 
what?" 

"What  existed,  naturally  enough ;  except  that  it  would 
have  seemed  so  intrusive,  so  crass,  to  burden  you  even 
with  denials.  Does  one  always  need  to  deny?"  He 
spread  out  his  hands.  "Can't  you  see  for  yourself?" 

She  smiled  slightly.  "I  see  one  thing,  and  that  is 
that  during  the  winter  you  and  Mrs.  Herring  will  fre- 
quently meet." 

Gushing  was  silent  for  a  second ;  he  felt  scarcely  able, 
as  he  waited,  to  distinguish  between  his  astonishment  and 
his  resentment.  "And  do  you  think  it's  fair  to  attempt 
to  revive,  even  by  mentioning  it,  something  which  every 
hour  you've  lived  with  me  must  have  proved  to  you  has 
long  since  ceased  to  exist?  Who  gave  you  such  ideas — 
what  gave  you  such  ideas?" 

"If  you  call  them  ideas !"  She  smiled  again. 

"Well,  then,  Mimi  gave  them  to  me." 

Cushing's  thoughts  flew  back.  "Madame  von  Alfons! 
And  she  had  heard ' 

"Yes ;  what  one  generally  hears  in  such  cases.  She  was 
in  America — that  year." 

"And  when  she  was  in  America " 

"She  had  chanced  to  see  you  together.  It  was  very 
simple."  She  put  it  with  her  usual  brevity.  "Such  situa- 
tions are  scarcely  things  to  be  concealed,  when  one  has 
Mimi's  perceptions." 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    63 

"And  what  earthly  business  had  your  cousin  not  to 
trust  me  to  manage  my  own  affairs  ?" 

Anne-Marie's  eyebrows  deprecated  his  tone.  "Since 
they  were  about  to  become  my  affairs,  and  since  you 
were  a  stranger  to  us  all " 

"Then  do  I  understand  that  she  did  you  the  kindness, 
and  me  the  insult,  to  warn  you  ?" 

"She  merely  told  me  what  people  knew  had  existed 
between  you  and  Mrs.  Herring.  Surely  it  is  not  a  matter 
about  which  to  become  so  violent!  It  seems  to  me  so 
much  easier  to  admit  those  things,  and  such  a  saving  of 
trouble." 

"And  you  and  she  supposed,  I  take  it,  that  I  was 
capable  of  marrying  with  a  wretched  affair  of  that  sort 
on  my  mind?" 

"Ah,  do  you  seriously  suppose  I  could  be  as  naive  as 
that?  No.  My  cousin  knew  certain  facts  which  she 
thought  might  one  day  be  of  use  to  me,  and  so  she  told 
me  of  them ;  not,  of  course,"  she  finished,  with  her  elab- 
orate manner,  "until  after  I  was  married." 

Gushing  paused  to  choose  his  words.  "Well,  I  could 
have  told  her  that  I'm  incapable  of  any  and  every  sort 
of  disloyalty  to  you — incapable  of  it :  it's  the  usual  phrase, 
but  it's  simply  and  accurately  what  I  mean." 

"Yes  ?" 

"Yes?  But  my  dear  child,  how  could  you  seriously 
believe,  when  we've  been  married  scarcely  six  months, 
that  you  needed  to  warn  me  in  this  way  ?  And  that's  the 
reason  you  supposed  that  Edith  wanted  to  have  Geraldine 
with  her — no,  it's  too  fantastic !" 

"Scarcely  as  fantastic  as  you,  my  dear!  Yes,  you  see, 
but  I  am  getting  to  know  you !  There  would  always  be 


64    MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

a  streak  of  virtue  in  all  your  vices ;  they  would  be  acci- 
dents, instead  of  pleasures.  That  is  the  kind  of  unfaith- 
fulness which  is  dangerous  and  which  persists.  The 
moral  sense — you  would  have  it  even  in  immorality!" 
Her  eyes  met  his  with  a  light  irony  veiling  their  tenacity. 
"Very  well,  then.  All  I  want  is  your  assurance  that  the 
present  conditions  will  be  maintained." 

Gushing  paused  again.  Her  words  seemed  to  force  him 
to  a  long  series  of  conclusions.  They  had  suddenly  be- 
come the  measure  which  proved  to  him  how  little  any  ex- 
change of  deep  confidence  had  taken  place  between  them. 

"And  you  need  my  assurance?  But  can't  you  see  it—- 
can't you  feel  that  you  have  it  ?" 

"Of  course  I  know  that  you  have  every  desire  to  be 
considerate  to  me." 

"That's  not  the  point.  Don't  you  see  that,  whatever 
follies  I  may  have  committed  when  I  was  free,  I'm  bound 
now — exactly  that — for  the  rest  of  my  life?" 

"Bound?"  Her  shoulders  rose  and  fell.  "None  the 
less,  I  should  like  to  have  your  assurance." 

"I'm  sorry  you've  asked  for  it,"  he  returned  briefly. 
"But  you  have  it." 

"Thank  you,  my  dear ;  you  are  very  good."  It  seemed 
to  him,  as  she  replied,  that  it  was  not  the  least  obscure 
part  of  what  she  did  that  she  could  so  expertly  apply  all 
the  amenities  of  courtesy  to  their  relation.  She  turned 
toward  the  door,  as  if  it  were  also  part  of  her  skill  to 
be  able  to  end  the  matter  as  she  pleased. 

"We  must  dress ;  it  is  late,  and  do  you  remember  that 
we  are  dining  out?  Oh,  and  one  thing  more.  You  did 
not  mean  it,  I  am  sure,  but  when  you  came  in  this  after- 
noon— before  Edith  arrived  and  when  those  ladies, 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    65 

friends  of  Miss  Morrow's,  were  here — you  did  not  greet 
me  very  politely.  Did  you  notice  ?" 

"And  if  I  had  noticed  should  I  have  done  it?"  Gush- 
ing's  laugh  had  a  sharp  edge.  "Aren't  you  a  little  rude, 
to  suppose  me  capable  of  being  rude  to  you?" 

She  disregarded  this,  with  a  light  gesture.  "You  could 
not  greet  me  as  you  would  like  to  greet  me,  in  public; 
that  is  evident.  But  you  could  at  least  take  my  hand 
or  make  some  sign,  instead  of  saying  'Well,  Anne- Marie/ 
as  you  say  'Well,  Edith.'  Those  things  are  slight  but 
they  are  none  the  less  important." 

"Well,  it's  a  paradox  that's  beyond  me!  It's  not  so 
much  that,  if  you  don't  condone  infidelities,  at  least  you 
accept  them — and  then  that  in  the  next  breath  you  re- 
quire one  so  sedulously  to  observe  a  form !  It's  that  you 
simply  don't  see.  It's  just  that;  you  don't  see  the  fact 
behind  the  fact.  You  don't  see  that  if  I  wronged  you,  in 
the  slightest  way  or  in  the  gravest,  I'd  wrong  all  the 
reasons  I  have  to  be  alive !" 

He  had  laid  his  hands  on  her  shoulders,  and  under 
this  closer  scrutiny  he  saw  that  her  face  changed.  Her 
eyelids  quivered  and  she  drew  back.  "Very  well,  then; 
but  none  the  less  I  am  glad  that  Mimi  told  me.  I  have 
not,  of  course,  seen  Mrs.  Herring;  but  with  a  woman 
of  that  type — well,  one  never  knows." 


VII 


ONE  evening,  two  years  later,   these  first  events  of 
his  married  life  came  back  to  Gushing  with  pe- 
culiar vividness. 


66    MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

He  had  opened  the  hall  door  and  come  out  for  a 
breath  of  fresh  air,  on  a  dripping  autumn  night  when 
the  dampness  was  colder  than  frost  and  the  steady  rain 
which  had  fallen  all  day  appeared  to  penetrate  the 
solidity  of  the  very  stones.  On  each  side  the  familiar 
street  stretched  its  narrow  length  to  where  the  noise 
of  heavy  traffic  flowed  in  opposite  directions,  and  the 
yellow  lights  struck  long  trembling  reflections  from  the 
wet  asphalt.  The  opposite  houses,  in  spite  of  their  mo- 
notonous ugliness,  had  the  friendliness  of  faces  which 
had  watched  him  until  they  knew  him  well — or,  as  his 
wife  would  have  put  it,  which  would  have  watched  him 
if  they  had  had  any  personality  to  watch  with.  He  was 
conscious  that  he  now  saw  his  surroundings  as  changed 
in  the  light  of  her  comments,  just  as  what  he  regarded 
as  the  sources  of  his  happiness  itself  had  assumed,  under 
the  dissection  of  her  irony,  an  effect  which  was  disconcert- 
ing and  specious. 

The  day  had  been  one  of  extended  fatigue,  the  culmina- 
tion of  a  six  weeks  of  trying  anxiety.  Miss  Morrow  had 
surprised  them  by  her  sudden  arrival  from  Paris,  in  the 
preceding  month.  He  and  his  wife  had  at  once  insisted 
that  she  should  make  her  headquarters  at  their  house,  and 
when  she  had  felt  herself  established  under  the  care  of 
her  former  ward's  affection,  she  had  confided  to  them 
that  her  doctors  pronounced  her  gravely  ill.  There  was 
something  peculiarly  touching  to  Gushing  in  the  fact  of 
her  return.  She  had  evidently  been  beset  by  the  nostalgia 
of  the  woman  who  has  lived  without  any  sequence  of  tra- 
dition or  occupation.  Uncomfortable  as  she  pronounced 
New  York  to  be  and  scandalous  as  she  found  its  prices, 
he  could  see  that  her  dependence  on  France  had  imper- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    67 

ceptibly  disappeared;  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  her 
return  was  marked  with  the  pathos  of  all  silent  reactions. 

Her  condition  had  soon  become  worse,  and  two  days 
before  she  had  died.  Gushing,  his  sister  and  his  wife 
had  been  constantly  with  her  during  the  past  weeks,  and 
what  had  consoled  her  more  than  his  support  or  Edith 
Sale's  capable  care  was  Anne-Marie's  grief.  The  prick 
of  doubt  with  which  the  girl  had  inspired  her  had  never 
been  quite  dispelled,  and  she  had  not  appeared  entirely 
to  trust  the  outcome  of  the  marriage.  If  more  of  the 
outward  signs  of  orthodoxy  had  been  present — if  they 
had  had  a  child  or  if  Anne-Marie  had  shown  a  more  ob- 
vious assimilation  of  his  tastes  and  habits,  Gushing  saw 
that  her  uncertainties  would  have  been  satisfied.  To  be 
able  to  share  so  deep  an  emotion  had  bridged  the  gap, 
and  the  sorrow  which  her  illness  and  her  approaching  end 
inspired,  and  Anne-Marie's  complete  surrender  to  it,  had 
evidently  seemed  to  Miss  Morrow  more  nearly  compre- 
hensible than  anything  which  had  occurred  between  them. 

Yet  all  day  Gushing  had  been  conscious  of  his  curi- 
osity as  to  what  Miss  Morrow  herself  would  have  felt 
if  she  could  have  witnessed  this  same  grief  on  the  day 
of  her  funeral.  The  most  lenient  spectator  would  have 
been  unable  to  separate  Anne-Marie's  tears  from  her 
careful  sense  of  fashion  and  from  her  concern  as  to  the 
way  in  which  her  crepe  veil  should  fall  from  her  shoul- 
ders. The  various  duties  which  went  with  his  executor- 
ship  of  Miss  Morrow's  wishes  had  kept  him  busy  and 
preoccupied.  But  he  had  been  unable  to  escape  from  his 
persistent  astonishment  at  his  wife's  capacity  to  be  over- 
come by  the  sadness  of  death  and  yet  to  treat  it  as  the 
most  social  of  occasions.  As  the  person  who  stood  for 


68    MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

Miss  Morrow's  family,  she  had  expected  to  receive  the 
condolences  of  their  friends  and  to  admit  them  all  to  the 
spectacle  of  her  sorrow.  It  was  more  than  usually  annoy- 
ing to  Gushing  that  every  one  stared  at  her  and  that  he 
should  feel  her  to  be  in  need  of  such  generous  allow- 
ances of  judgment.  As  they  had  turned  from  the  grave 
he  had  been  unable  to  suppress  a  sharp  exclamation. 
"Come,  come,  my  dear,  this  really  won't  do.  As  drama 
it  may  be  passable,  but  as  life  it's  outrageous!"  As  he 
spoke  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  real  significance  of  the 
occasion  had  been  lost  for  him  in  something  petty  and 
factitious,  and  that  she  was  to  blame  for  it.  If  one  did 
not  have  the  restraints  of  decency,  at  such  times,  at  least 
one  might  be  expected  to  have  the  restraints  of  intelli- 
gence. 

It  was  perhaps  the  most  perplexing  part  of  Anne- 
Marie's  ingenuity  that,  in  spite  of  these  differences  be- 
tween them — differences  so  slight,  and  yet  so  insidious 
that  they  were  offences — his  happiness  could  still  be  bril- 
liant. If  he  had  looked  at  it  only  outwardly,  he  would 
not  have  been  able  to  deny  the  success  with  which  she 
had  emerged  from  the  tests  of  the  last  two  years.  Her 
single  ambition  had  appeared  to  be  to  identify  herself 
with  his  life  and  her  single  desire  to  please  him.  He 
had  to  grant  that  she  had  proved  this  in  practical  ways. 
Her  own  difficulties  in  settling  into  this  role  of  devotion 
must  have  been  real,  and  in  looking  back  he  remembered 
how  gallantly  she  had  tried  to  meet  them.  Yet,  as  he 
frequently  felt,  if  she  had  complained  more  and  been 
less  eager  to  acquit  herself  he  could  have  understood 
her  better  than  he  could  understand  her  impervious 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    69 

standpoints  and  her  persistent  confusion  of  what  was 
trivial  with  what  was  important. 

Slight  as  his  difficulties  in  dealing  with  her  were,  he 
knew  that  it  was  his  uncertainty  as  to  where  they  would 
next  spring  up  and  how  quickly  they  might  extend 
which  gave  him  his  constant  sense  of  instability.  Through 
the  interval  of  the  two  years  he  could  trace  back  all 
their  differences  to  beginnings  which  had  been  only 
charming.  It  had  been  inevitable,  as  he  came  to  regard  his 
marriage  less  as  an  exception  to  all  the  other  happenings 
of  his  life,  that  such  differences  should  become  more  than 
trying  divergences  of  opinion.  The  quaintness  of  Anne- 
Marie's  oblique  views  had  disappeared;  her  very  accent 
had  ceased  to  mean  more  to  him  than  the  irritating  per- 
sistence of  some  of  her  French  habits. 

It  was  above  all  the  unspoken  detachment  which  argued 
so  little  feeling  in  her  which  had  been  hard  for  both  his 
patience  and  his  pride.  When  she  was  angry  she  was 
usually  pathetic,  and  his  sympathy  was  then  aroused 
easily  enough.  But  her  reactions  were  usually  to  a  reti- 
cence as  perfect  as  it  was  intangible.  The  impermeable 
front  she  opposed  to  him  was  the  same  with  which  she 
faced  the  conditions  of  his  life:  her  acceptance  might  be 
of  the  letter,  but  it  was  never  of  the  spirit.  She  was 
scrupulously  careful  never  to  complain.  Yet  Gushing 
was  never  for  an  instant  unaware  of  what  it  cost  her  to 
do  without  the  complexities  of  surrounding  and  finish 
which  were  her  natural  air.  He  had  not  once  known  her 
to  make  the  smallest  concession  of  standard.  She  was 
never  agreeably  surprised  by  one  of  the  people  who 
came  to  dine,  by  a  book  or  by  a  play.  It  had  seemed  to 
him  that  she  reached  the  very  height  of  her  power  to 


70    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

appear  different  from  her  surroundings  when  they  were 
in  the  country.  He  never  saw  her,  in  the  seaside  place 
where  he  and  Mrs.  Sale  spent  their  summers  and  which 
had  always  seemed  to  him  to  have  the  charm  of  high 
bright  skies  and  fresh  winds,  without  seeing,  too,  all  from 
which  he  had  transported  her.  He  could  imagine  her  best 
in  a  long  allee,  whose  straight  tall  trees  were  the  darkest 
green,  standing  with  her  fine  chin  raised  and  her  hands 
arrested  in  one  of  her  upward  gestures.  There  was  al- 
ways moonlight  on  the  gleaming  satin  of  her  dress,  as  it 
lay  motionless  against  the  grass,  and  on  the  long  spiral 
of  a  fountain,  where  the  trees  parted.  Her  acceptance  of 
the  free  American  summer  life  had  been  as  carefully 
courteous  as  everything  else.  Her  only  remark  to  him 
was  that  people  who  lived  in  rooms  without  doors  and 
in  gardens  without  walls  showed  how  uninterestingly  lit- 
tle they  had  to  conceal.  But  it  seemed  to  Gushing  that 
under  the  force  of  her  influence  the  very  landscape 
around  them  tried  to  formalise  itself  into  some  sugges- 
tion of  style,  and  he  felt  a  certain  grim  sympathy  with 
its  failure. 

If  she  had  been  really  stirred  by  what  was  outside  her 
own  prejudices,  he  was  conscious  that  he  could  have 
been  genuinely  sorry  for  her.  But  her  idea  of  the  pro- 
prieties required  her  to  put  up  with  what  she  disliked, 
with  an  indirection  so  elaborate  that  it  was  difficult  to 
take  her  seriously.  Gushing  had  once  or  twice  urged 
her,  since  his  own  affairs  pressed  closely,  to  leave  him 
and  spend  a  few  weeks  in  France.  He  ought  to  have 
remembered,  he  said,  how  dependent  a  person  of  her  type 
was  upon  les  eaux,  and  that  she  was  made  to  pass  the 
summer  tightly  tied  up  in  veils  and  listening  to  a  band. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL  71 

But  her  invariable  reply  had  been  a  refusal.  French 
women,  she  added  for  his  information,  travelled  alone 
only  to  seek  adventures  or  to  conceal  them.  She  clung 
tenaciously  to  the  fulfilment  of  her  duties.  Yet  he  was 
not  allowed  to  forget  her  dislikes ;  and  she  consoled  her- 
self during  the  summers  by  contriving  long  absences  in 
town — her  dressmaker  or  her  dentist  was  usually  the 
excuse — with  an  elaboration  of  arrangement,  as  he  dryly 
noted,  which  bordered  on  intrigue. 

Gushing  had  been  accustomed  to  see  women  either 
impose  their  own  preferences  or  else  pass  them  over  in- 
differently; and  he  had  become  more  and  more  sharply 
aware  of  the  unchangeable  qualities  in  his  wife.  The 
only  awkwardness  she  ever  showed  was  in  her  surprise 
that  the  element  into  which  she  had  to  fit  herself  was 
so  intangible  and  so  fluid.  It  had  been  the  same  in  her 
dealings  with  people.  Her  fine  apprehensions  were  most 
at  a  loss  in  that  they  were  not  required  to  apply  them- 
selves collectively.  Cushing's  humour  had  divined  that 
she  herself  was  no  more  puzzled  than  the  recipients  of 
her  grave  formalities.  The  scrupulousness  and  regular- 
ity of  her  invitations  were  as  puzzling  as  her  attentions 
to  ladies  of  Miss  Morrow's  age,  who,  in  their  square  old 
houses,  seemed  surprised  almost  beyond  pleasure  at  the 
seriousness  with  which  she  accepted  their  pale  traditions. 
Edith's  friends,  who  ran  to  all  shades  of  difference,  were 
interested  in  her  as  long  as  she  had  the  novelty  of  the 
stranger.  Her  accent  and  the  eccentricities  of  her  man- 
ner had  for  them  something  of  the  charm  her  foreign- 
ness  had  had  for  Miss  Morrow.  But  as  they  grew  to 
know  her  better  it  was  obvious  that  they  thought  her  dis- 
appointing. Gushing  had  to  acknowledge  that  when  she 


72    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

did  not  enchant  she  was  ineffectual.  People  could  not 
understand  that  she  did  not  mean  them  to  pass  beyond 
her  elaborate  courtesy,  any  more  than  she  understood  the 
lack  of  cohesion  between  their  dinner-table  guests.  They 
regarded  social  intercourse  as  something  inevitably  con- 
sisting of  crowds  and  entertainment;  and  she,  he  saw, 
understood  as  she  sat  alone  at  home,  in  her  upright  ele- 
gance, the  existence  of  a  codified  society  which  they 
would  never  approach. 

He  was  roused  from  his  thoughts  by  the  sound  of  his 
sister's  voice  in  the  hall  behind  him.  They  had  brought 
her  back  to  dine,  and  he  had  left  her,  half  an  hour  be- 
fore, trying  to  comfort  Anne-Marie's  outbursts  of  remi- 
niscent grief. 

He  was  unconscious  of  his  dependence  upon  Mrs.  Sale 
at  such  times,  and  he  showed  it  now  by  making  no  effort, 
as  he  walked  down  the  steps  with  her  to  her  waiting 
motor,  to  hide  the  fatigue  with  which  the  difficulties  of 
the  day  had  marked  his  face.  His  sister  slipped  her 
hand  through  his  arm  as  she  glanced  at  him.  "What  a 
day  it's  been  for  you!  And  all  that  you'll  now  have  on 
your  hands,  with  this  estate !" 

The  set  patience  of  Cushing's  face  broke  into  a  smile, 
on  which  the  light  of  the  motor  lamps  struck.  "Oh, 
don't  beat  about  the  bush.  You  mean,  what's  a  mere 
executorship  compared  to  a  wife  who  cries  like  that!" 

Edith  drew  back  on  the  curb,  out  of  earshot  of  her 
chauffeur.  "Yes ;  I  suppose  it's  what  I  do  mean." 

"It's  not,  I  acknowledge,  a  usual  custom !" 

"Ah,  but  it's  probably  hard  for  a  stranger  to  conform 
to  our  dull  Anglo-Saxon  ways  all  at  once " 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    73 

Cushing's  amusement  stopped  her.  "Dear  Edith,  you're 
an  angel.  In  spite  of  all  you  must,  as  a  human  being, 
sometimes  wonder — you've  a  loyalty  to  Anne-Marie 
which  is  almost  too  good — which  is  sometimes  almost  a 
strain  to  keep  up  with!" 

Mrs.  Sale  returned  his  smile.  "That's  all  very  well. 
But  don't  you  see  that  when  one  continually  witnesses 
the  invasion  of  a  point  of  view  like  hers  one's  got  to  be 
scrupulously  loyal  to  her,  or " 

"Or  else  the  impulse  to  take  her  by  the  shoulders  and 
shake  her  would  be  irresistible?  And  don't  you 

think "  He  paused.  "Don't  you  think  I  invade,  on 

my  side?" 

"No,  my  dear;  you  don't  invade.  You  merely  refuse 
to  conform." 

"I  refuse  at  a  brisk  rate,  I  assure  you,"  said  Gushing 
lightly. 

"And  you  get  an  enormous  return.  Any  woman  whose 
head  tilts  so  charmingly !" 

"Oh,  I  get  everything — everything.  All  I'm  saying  is 

that  I  also  get  something  of  a  curiosity "  He  broke 

his  sentence  off.  It  had  struck  him,  with  sudden  acuity, 
that  his  exchange  of  comment  with  his  sister  had  never 
since  his  marriage  been  as  definite  as  this.  He  had  un- 
derstood that  it  was  as  instinctive  with  her  as  with  him 
to  feel  that  where  his  wife  was  concerned  they  were  com- 
mitted to  tacit  understandings  rather  than  to  explana- 
tions. 

Mrs.  Sale's  foot  was  on  the  step  of  her  motor  when  she 
turned  and  spoke  again.  "You  won't  mind  if  I  say  what 
I'm  going  to — even  if  it  surprises  you?  I've  a  message 
for  you — from  Geraldine.  She  wants  to  see  you." 


74    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

Her  tone  was  so  definitely  different  from  the  one  she 
had  used  a  second  before  that  Gushing  waited  in  aston- 
ishment. "Geraldine!  She  wants  to  see  me?  And 
why?" 

"That's  just  what  she  said  you'd  say "  She  broke 

off.  "We  talked  it  over  last  evening — she's  just  come  to 
me  again  for  a  fortnight — and  it  was  some  time  before  I 
could  convince  her  it  was  worth  while  to  ask  you.  You 
know  what  she  is.  She  said  that  you'd  agree  to  come, 
of  course ;  but  that  that  wouldn't  alter  the  fact  that  you'd 
regard  it  as  a  bother  and  a  bore." 

He  could  see  that  his  sister  had  slowly  flushed.  He  had 
often  thought  that  she  had  a  keener  sense  of  delicacy  for 
him  than  for  herself. 

"If  you'll  come  to-morrow  at  five  she'll  be  in  and  she'll 
be  alone.  Only  Paul — do  come."  She  hesitated  again. 
"Oh,  I  know  that  once  she  may  have  had  her  notions  of 
freedom  and  that  every  young  man  has  his.  I  suppose 
you  had  yours.  That  doesn't  concern  me.  But  now  she 
wants  something — that's  evident  I  don't  know  what; 
but  if  she  hadn't  had  a  reason  she'd  never  have  asked 
you.  Oh,  of  course  I  know  that  you've  met,  in  the  last 
year  or  so,  and  met  perfectly  freely.  But,  as  she  said,  a 
summons  from  her  was  different.  At  least  she  predicted 
you'd  regard  it  as  different."  Her  hands  fell  into  his. 
"But  do  come !" 

Gushing  waited  for  another  moment,  and  then  his 
shoulders  rose.  "Well,  after  all,  the  point  isn't  why 
should  I  go  to  see  her,  but  why  shouldn't  I !" 

He  stood  on  the  curb  until  her  motor  was  out  of  sight. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  any  question  except  his  intimate 
personal  ones  gradually  receded  with  it.  He  was  im- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     75 

mensely  tired,  and  there  was  something  restful  in  the 
light  touch  of  rain  on  his  face  and  in  the  peculiar  desola- 
tion in  the  wet  autumn  air.  He  knew  that  his  wife  was 
probably  still  up  and  waiting  to  see  him.  Yet  he  felt  his 
energy  lag.  He  would  find  her  engaged  in  some  of  those 
complex  processes  of  her  toilet  which  had  lately  seemed 
to  him  a  little  absurd.  He  had  learned  too  well,  he 
thought  ironically,  as  he  turned  towards  the  door,  the 
routine  not  only  of  her  habits  but  of  her  emotions. 


VIII 

ANNE-MARIE,  who  was  seated  at  her  dressing- 
table,  threw  a  look  over  her  shoulder  as  he  entered. 

"Ah,  what  a  draught  you  let  in ! — and  when  you  know 
there  is  nothing  I  detest  as  much  as  a  draught !  It  makes 
one  want  to  cry  with  vexation." 

"Well,  my  dear  child,  you  must  cry,  then,"  said  Gush- 
ing, smiling.  He  had  dropped  into  a  chair  beside  her, 
and  he  was  regarding  her  with  the  amused  tenderness 
which  she  could  rouse  in  him  before  he  was  aware  of  it- 
Between  the  shaded  lamps  on  her  dressing-table  the  light 
struck  on  the  whiteness  of  her  figure,  from  the  line  her 
petticoat  drew  against  the  floor  up  to  the  gleam  of  her 
forehead,  under  the  dark  folds  she  was  coiling  above  it 

She  leaned  back  in  her  chair,  with  a  long  sigh. 

"Oh,  what  a  day!  There  is  nothing  left  of  me  but 
exhaustion.  That  horrible  clergyman — what  was  his 
name  ?  No,  I  cannot  think  of  it.  I  did  not  think  Edith's 
hat  was  very  appropriate.  She  does  not  understand  that 
it  is  more  important  to  look  appropriate  than  to  look 


76    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

extravagant.  But  you,  my  dear — you  looked  so  distin- 
guished, so  in  the  proper  tone.  No,  there  is  nothing  left 
of  me." 

Gushing  had  lit  a  cigarette,  and  he  found  himself  set- 
tling into  the  comfort  of  his  chair,  with  unconscious  re- 
laxation, while  he  watched  the  swift  movement  of  her 
hands  among  her  gold-topped  bottles  and  boxes. 

"I  shall  wear  a  severe  mourning  for  six  months — I 
have  decided,"  she  pursued,  looking  at  herself  critically 
in  the  mirror.  "That  seems  to  me  correct.  Of  course 
Miss  Morrow  was  like  a  near  relative  to  me." 

"It  would  seem  to  me  an  advantage  if  you  could  wear 
mourning  which  was  a  little  calmer  than  what  you  wore 
to-day,"  said  Gushing,  still  keeping  his  smile. 

"But,  my  dear,  mourning  is  not  only  a  sign  of  cour- 
tesy. It  is  a  sign  of  feeling." 

"Well,  then,  one  might  say  that  to  show  so  much  feel- 
ing was  scarcely  decent." 

Anne-Marie  broke  out  hotly:  "Dieu  merci,  I  am  inde- 
cent, then.  Miss  Morrow  rescued  me  from  misery.  Is  it 
indecent  to  admit  that  ?  I  suppose  so.  I  shall  trail  yards 
and  yards  of  crepe,  if  it  seems  to  me  proper — yes,  yards 

and  yards  of  it "  She  paused.  Cushing's  silent  shrug 

appeared  to  caution  her,  as  well  as  some  instinct  of  pru- 
dence which  he  had  lately  seen  at  work  in  her.  It  was 
evident  that  at  times  she  too  foresaw  their  disagreements 
and  antagonisms.  He  never  watched  the  effort  she  made 
to  control  herself,  farcical  as  it  often  was,  without  a  stir 
of  his  sympathy  and  a  sense  that  the  maturity  which  it 
argued  in  her  was  a  little  sad.  Her  thoughts  had  evi- 
dently followed  his,  for  she  bent  towards  him  with  a 
quick  return  to  her  former  manner. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    77 

"My  dear,  I  am  wicked  to  be  rude  to  you.  Yes.  And 
I  am  inconsiderate,  too,  and  that  is  worse.  Look!  I 
have  let  you  sit  there  with  no  place  to  put  the  ashes  of 
your  cigarette.  See,  here  is  a  tray.  No,  there  is  nothing 
left  of  me.  When  you  came  in  I  was  looking  at  myself 
and  thinking  just  that;  and  yet  it  is  the  consolation  of  a 
woman  of  my  type  that  fatigue  accentuates  us,  rather 
than  destroys  us.  I  am  not  beautiful — no  one  could  call 
me  that.  But  I  have  a  certain  something :  je  ne  suis  vrai- 
ment  pas  trop  mal."  She  seemed  to  know  intuitively  that 
she  had  better  keep  to  this  tone;  then,  drawing  a  finger 
over  the  fulness  of  her  cheek,  up  across  her  eyebrows  and 
down  her  sensitive  nose,  she  continued  musingly:  "I 
wonder  how  I  shall  look  when  I  am  dead !" 

Cushing's  tired  nerves  sharpened  his  tone.  "Dear 
Anne-Marie,  you've  talent  for  raking  up  the  most  odious 
notions !" 

"But  do  you  never  wonder?  Ah,  never,  I  suppose. 
You  are  too  busy.  And  yet  how  can  you  not  wonder !" 

"Oh,  I've  enough  to  wonder  about  where  you're  con- 
cerned !" 

She  disregarded  the  affectionate  raillery  of  his  tone, 
and  she  began  to  draw  off  her  rings,  looking  at  herself 
thoughtfully  in  the  mirror.  "Ah,  well,  some  day  you  will 
see  me  not  difficult  or  emotional  or  fantastic,  but  dead. 
Yes.  Only  a  few  years — think !  How  pitiably  short  it  is ! 
And  I  shall  die  first;  yes,  my  lungs  will  one  day  go — 
but  like  that !  I  shall  die,  and  lie  like  poor  Miss  Morrow, 
so  grave  and  white.  It  breaks  one's  heart.  Poor  soul, 
and  she  looked  so  meek — she,  who  was  never  meek.  And 
you  will  say :  'She  had  faults ;  she  cried  too  much,  and  I 
did  not  always  sympathise  with  her  taste,  but  after  all 


78    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

she  was  very  charming,  Anne-Marie.  And  to  think  that 
once  she  was  young,  and  that  once  her  hair  was  soft  and 
full  of  life,  and  that  her  hands  were  once  so  alive  and 

her  nails  were  once  so  pink !  And  what  is  she 

now ?'" 

She  broke  off,  with  the  question  of  her  smile.  Gushing 
found  himself  wondering  for  a  moment  at  the  unfailing 
ingenuity  with  which  she  could  move  him;  then  both  the 
appeal  of  her  look  and  his  own  fatigue  overcame  his 
resistance  and  he  bent  forward  and  caught  her  hand  so 
suddenly  that  one  of  the  bottles  on  the  dressing-table 
overturned  with  a  crash. 

"Don't — I'm  too  tired.  It's  been  too  difficult  a  day. 
We'll  die,  I  suppose.  But  what  does  it  matter?  All  that 
matters  is  that  there'll  be  some  future  for  the  kind  of 
love  I've  had  for  you,  some  immortality " 

Her  eyes  still  rested  on  his.  "How  absurd,  my  dear ! 
Immortality !" 

"Well,  why  not  immortality?  The  more  I  live  the 
more  I  seem  to  see  how  dependent  our  lives  are  on  the 
fact  of  death — on  the  last  high  stroke  which  makes  all 

that's  gone  before  fall  into  place "  He  paused.  It 

gave  him  an  indefinable  sense  of  being  checked  to  see 
that  she  was  listening  with  her  slowest  smile — a  smile 
which  had  the  peculiar  quality  of  making  her  light  scep- 
ticism seem  as  innately  a  part  of  her  as  her  scents  and 
her  laces  and  the  powder  on  her  neck. 

"You  like  to  talk  about  all  these  large  ideas  till  the  uni- 
verse becomes  one  vast  draught."  She  shook  her  head. 
"But  you  fool  yourself  a  little,  my  poor  Paul.  No,  but 
how  absurd  it  is !  I  believe  you  like  to  believe  in  heaven 
because  it  is  so  distant.  I  believe" — her  crooked  eye- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    79 

brows  were  raised  to  their  highest — "I  believe  you  would 
like  to  turn  even  me  into  one  of  those  spiritual  realities 
one  cannot  touch!" 

Cushing's  recoil  was  so  instinctive  that  it  took  him 
unawares.  She  had  never  aroused  in  him  a  feeling 
which  so  nearly  verged  on  repulsion.  He  waited  for  a 
moment  before  he  spoke.  "Don't  you  see  when  you  say 
things  like  that  you  spoil  it  all — that  you  ruin  what  is  the 
dignity  of  feeling?" 

She  straightened  herself  and  her  face  slowly  darkened. 
"What  do  you  mean?  Explain  to  me  what  you  mean!" 

"Oh,  sometimes  you've  a  way  of  saying  things — a  way 
of  insisting  on  the  concrete — that's  nothing  short  of  in- 
delicacy. If  you  knew  how  I  detest  to  accuse  you  of  it — 
you,  who  are  really  all  delicacy " 

Instead  of  making  one  of  her  usual  quick  retorts  she 
seemed  to  catch  herself  up  and  deliberate.  "So  you 
think " 

"My  poor  child,  you  don't  seem  to  see  it,  but  you've 
a  way  of  reducing  things  to  the  bare  machinery  of  hu- 
man nature.  It's  adroit,  if  you  please,  but  it's  also  rather 
dreadful." 

He  had  never  seen  her  more  tense.  He  could  see 
even  in  her  thin  shoulders  the  brace  of  her  defiance,  as  if 
every  inch  of  her  tried  to  sharpen  the  irony  with  which 
she  responded.  "Yet  you  say  you  continue  to  love 
me." 

"Do  you  think  there's  been  an  instant,  since  I  first 
loved  you,  that  I  haven't  loved  you  ?  Come !  Since  we're 
facing  it" — he  spoke  deliberately — "let's  face  it  fully! 
When  I  fail  to  understand  you  and  you  me — do  you  stop 


80    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

to  think  of  that?  That  every  second  of  every  day  I've 
loved  you?" 

"But  of  course  I  know  you  have  loved  me." 

"But  do  you  understand  what  I  mean  when  I  say  that  ? 
By  love,  I  mean  my  love  of  all  of  you — down  to  the  in- 
most things  which  I  believe  I  shall  never  lose.  I  don't 
separate  one  part  from  another,  as  you  do.  And  when 
you  insist  on  doing  that — on  stripping  things  of  all  but 
a  rather  stupidly  concrete  significance — then,  I  say,  you 
spoil  everything." 

She  shot  a  quick  glance  at  him.  "For  the  matter  of 
that,  I,  too,  have  loved  you ;  but  do  you  think  that  helps  ?" 

"Helps?    It's  everything!" 

"Theoretically,  yes;  but  practically !  Very  well, 

then" — she  put  it  with  her  incisive  enunciation — "if  you 
want  to  face  it  frankly,  let  me  ask  you :  have  you  noticed, 
since  the  first  warmth  of  our  marriage  wore  itself  out, 
that  our  love  and  our  sympathy — and  the  instincts  of  our 
affection  and  the  instincts  of  our  sympathy — have  corre- 
sponded less  and  less?" 

Gushing  paused  for  a  second  to  grant  that  sometimes 
her  unreasonableness  carried  her  to  the  clearest  truths. 
"Yes ;  I've  noticed  it,"  he  assented. 

"And  why,  do  you  think,  has  it  been  so  ?" 

"You've  been  everything  lovely  to  me — ah,  everything. 
You've  kept  my  feeling  for  you  so  fresh  and  so  exquisite" 
— he  waited — "but  when  it  comes  to  the  more  important 
bond " 

She  struck  his  shoulder  with  her  hand.  "Exactly. 
You  are  right.  It  is  the  most  important  bond,  and  we 
have  not  had  it.  We  have  not  succeeded  from  my  point 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    81 

of  view  any  more  than  from  yours.  And  why  ?  Because 
you  would  not  let  me  succeed." 

"It  hasn't  been  that  I  didn't  want  to  let  you,"  he  said 
gravely. 

"Want !  There  it  is.  You  want  to  do  right,  and  so  you 
are  somehow  in  the  right.  No,  I  beg  you,  Paul !  When 
we  married  we  knew  we  differed,  did  we  not  ?  We  were 
prepared  to  make  allowance  for  our  unlikeness.  And 
what  happened  ?  I  saw  at  once  that  I  was  to  you  some- 
thing delightful,  curious,  like  a  bibelot  from  a  strange 
place.  I  amused  you ;  my  French  amused  you,  my  Eng- 
lish amused  you,  my  ignorances  and  my  mistakes.  And 
what  did  I  find  out  ?  That  you  never  intended  to  take  me 
seriously.  All  you  wanted  me  to  do  was  to  continue  to 
delight  you.  You  wanted  to  smile  at  me  and  to  give 
me  money,  and  that  was  all.  Is  that  not  true  ?" 

"It's  true  that  I  never  had  a  thought  but  to  love  you." 

"Yes.  But  true,  too,  that  I  have  never  for  an  instant 
shared  with  you.  Shared!  Do  you  think  I  have  not 
known  that  you  never  let  me  share?  Do  you  think  I 
have  not  minded  that  I  was  merely  delightful  or  annoy- 
ing— all  delightful  people  are  sometimes  annoying — from 
your  point  of  view?  Have  you  regretted  as  I  have  re- 
gretted that  we  have  no  child?"  He  felt  her  search  his 
face  with  her  quick,  sharp  curiosity.  "No;  to  you  chil- 
dren would  not  be  what  they  would  be  to  me.  I  am  not 
clever;  I  do  not  care  to  learn  things — perhaps  I  am  even 
stupid.  But  there  again  it  was  the  same.  Ah,  you  are 
so  incredible!  I  know  you  have  hoped  for  a  child,  and 
yet  you  felt  your  hope  was  less  important  than  your  con- 
sideration for  me.  You  felt  it  was  loyal  to  your  love  to 
be  afraid  of  the  pain  for  me,  the  drag,  the  discomforts. 


82    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

No,  I  can  tell  you  this,"  she  ended,  "and  that  is  that  I 
have  not  liked  to  be  the  kind  of  wife  you  made  me." 

"Then  why,"  he  caught  her  up,  "haven't  you  made 
things  different?  Why  haven't  you  made  me  see,  if 'you 
wanted  to  share,  that  you  could  share?" 

"But  how  could  one  share  with  a  woman  whom  one 
spoils  and  finds  amusing?  You  say  I  have  not  made  you 
share,  that  I  have  entered  into  your  life  only  in  one  way. 
Very  well,  then,  you  have  never  responded  to  anything 
else.  We  women,"  her  shoulders  rose  and  fell,  "we  must 
naturally  do  what  pays  us  best." 

Gushing  waited  for  a  moment,  and  then  laid  an  impul- 
sive hand  again  on  hers.  "But  you  must  know  what  I 
feel — that's  the  essential  thing!  I'll  try,  my  dear;  I'll 
do  my  best  to  be  less  obtuse  and  to  give  you  more  of  a 
chance " 

Her  lip  quivered  and  her  eyes  first  darkened  and  then 
brightened.  She  had  let  her  hands  fall  limply  to  her  lap ; 
and  as  he  took  in  the  limpid  intensity  of  the  look  she  re- 
turned to  him  Gushing  was  extraordinarily  touched.  For 
the  first  time  he  seemed  to  see  disclosed  the  extent  of  her 
unhappiness.  Her  usually  compact  face  was  grave  and 
saddened.  Its  expression  of  discouragement  marked  for 
him  the  extent  of  the  failure  of  a  feeling  which  was  not 
deeply  consequent  and  relevant,  not  practically  concerned 
with  the  actual  conditions  of  life. 

He  saw  that,  like  the  prehensive  creature  she  was,  she 
had  caught  the  trend  of  his  thoughts  and  that  she  flushed 
deeply.  Her  flush  spread  to  her  forehead  and  the  look 
of  pale  discouragement  which  replaced  it  matched  the 
tremulousness  of  her  mouth.  She  rose  and  stood  beside 
him  with  her  hands  interlaced. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    83 

"There  is  one  thing  we  can  do.  We  can  change  the 
basis  of  our  relationship." 

"Change  it?    How  on  earth  can  we  change  it?" 

"We  can  acknowledge  that  your  idea  of  marriage" — 
her  light  mockery  flitted  over  her  face — "your  idea  that 
it  is  intensely  legal  in  form  and  a  little  illicit  in  applica- 
tion— is  a  failure.  Because,  of  course,  it  is  a  failure. 
We  could  frankly  admit  it.  Any  attempt  to  improve  it 
will  not  be  any  more  of  a  success.  That  is  evident 
enough.  Since  we  have  tried  an  American  marriage,  we 
may  as  well  try  an  American  failure.  At  least  I  shall  be 
less  miserable,  if  I  am  also  less  happy.  We  can  live  more 
or  less  apart,  as  your  husbands  and  wives  here  so  often 
do.  It  seems  to  me  hideous,  but  what  else  is  left  to  us? 
I  can  travel,  you  can  pay  my  bills,  we  can  bow  when  we 

pass  in  the  street "  Her  voice  broke.  "I  admit  that 

I  am  ignortant  of  such  vulgarities,  but  we  can  at  least 
try  it." 

"But  don't  you  see" — he  struggled  with  the  difficulty  of 
expressing  himself — "don't  you  see  that  I  can't  accept 
that  sort  of  invalid  compromise  any  more  than  you  can  ?" 

"But  that  is  just  what  you  have  accepted."  She  clasped 
her  hands.  "Oh,  is  it  not  the  simple  truth  that  people 
like  ourselves  always  fail — people  who  have  too  much 
affection  for  their  sympathy  and  too  little  sympathy  for 
their  affection?" 

He  caught  her  hands  again.  "I'll  do  anything — every- 
thing. You'll  see — things  will  change." 

She  shook  her  head.  "Things  may  change,  but  you 
will  not.  You  will  not  really  let  me  into  your  life." 

"You've  only  to  try  me.  Don't  I  tell  you — need  I  tell 
you — that  I'll  do  anything  in  the  world  for  you?" 


84.    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"And  let  me  be  what  I  want  to  be  to  you  ?  Let  me  in 
every  way  share?"  she  demanded. 

"Yes,  let  you  share!"  he  declared.  He  gave  her  back 
her  look  with  all  his  confidence,  and  then  he  was  sud- 
denly aware  that  his  humour  had  touched  the  situation 
irresistibly.  The  request  scarcely  fitted  the  scene,  the 
hour,  and  the  appearance  she  presented — all  so  studiously 
arranged.  He  glanced  around  the  room  and  back  to 
where  the  contents  of  the  bottle  he  had  upset  were  drip- 
ping to  the  floor,  unable  to  suppress  his  smile.  In  a  sec- 
ond she  had  perceived  it,  and  she  sprang  to  her  feet,  pale 
with  antagonism,  and  began  again  the  tears  she  had  shed 
all  day. 


IX 


IT  was  not  until  Gushing  paused  in  the  doorway  of  his 
sister's  drawing  room  on  the  following  afternoon  that 
he  felt  the  possible  significance  of  the  message  in  re- 
sponse to  which  he  had  come. 

He  had  been  detained  at  his  office  by  the  events  of  a 
busy  day,  and  he  had  had  to  cut  short  an  interview  of 
some  urgency  and  hurry  to  reach  Mrs.  Sale's  apartment 
at  the  appointed  time.  What  little  thought  he  had  given 
the  matter,  since  the  day  before,  had  reminded  him  of 
both  how  frank  and  how  indifferent  Mrs.  Herring's  as- 
sumptions had  all  along  been.  He  had  always  found  in 
her  the  same  impersonal  friendliness ;  and  since  she  had 
continued  to  be  intermittently  under  his  sister's  roof,  he 
had  seen  the  importance  of  showing  her  that  on  his  side 
there  was  no  more  desire  to  avoid  their  meetings  than 
on  hers.  It  was  Mrs.  Herring  herself  who  had  dispelled 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    85 

any  latent  uncertainties  which  had  remained  in  his  mind. 
Indeed,  as  he  had  had  an  opportunity  to  see  what  the 
last  two  or  three  years  had  done  for  her,  Gushing  had 
had  to  grant,  with  a  faint  amusement,  that  he  had  never 
found  in  her  as  much  to  like. 

In  the  days  immediately  following  her  divorce  from  a 
dissipated  husband,  and  when  her  reluctance  to  form  a 
new  permanent  tie  had  gradually  become  clear  to  him, 
Gushing  had  already  seen  the  difficulties  of  a  charm 
which  was  assertive  and  flagrant  rather  than  lurking 
and  delicate.  She  had  seemed  to  him  then  to  live  en- 
tirely by  her  intuition  and  by  the  amazing  correctness 
with  which  she  knew  the  right  month  to  be  in  Paris, 
the  right  weeks  for  Venice,  the  opera  to  admire  and  the 
attitude  to  assume  before  a  picture.  As  he  had  received 
his  recent  impressions  of  her  he  had  seen,  however,  that 
her  knack  had  become  more  personal  and  that  she  had 
acquired  the  right  touch  for  the  right  person  with  the 
sureness  of  a  more  supple  cleverness.  She  had  not 
Mrs.  Sale's  ways  of  sharing  a  man's  interests  any  more 
than  she  had  his  wife's  idle  grace,  but  she  had  too 
quick  a  plasticity  not  to  be  ready  with  the  amusing  re- 
sponse and  the  stimulative  question.  He  knew  that  it 
had  been  his  own  distaste  for  the  recollections  she  in- 
spired which  had  made  him  glad  of  her  expertness.  Yet 
if  he  had  his  flashes  of  memory  concerning  signs  of 
deeper  feeling  in  her,  it  was  she  herself  who,  whenever 
he  thought  he  discerned  them,  plainly  denied  their  exist- 
ence. Her  very  sincerities  were  hopelessly  contradictory. 

She  had  closed  her  book  deliberately  and  looked  up  at 
him  with  a  gradually  deepening  smile  when  the  door  shut 
behind  him.  Some  suggestion  in  her  look,  so  much 


86    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

graver  and  more  reposeful  than  usual,  carried  Gushing 
back,  in  an  instant,  to  the  look  she  had  given  him  in  the 
crowded  Paris  post-office  and  which,  in  spite  of  every- 
thing else  about  her,  had  conveyed  to  him  an  impression 
of  indefinable  feeling. 

"My  dear  Paul,  how  exceedingly  nice  of  you!"  she 
exclaimed;  and  as  Gushing  drew  up  a  chair  she  added: 
"I  shan't  beat  about  the  bush  any  more  than  I  usually 
beat  about  the  bush.  I  knew  Edith  was  to  be  out  this 
afternoon,  and  I  wanted  to  see  you  alone." 

Gushing  gave  her  back  her  smile.  "On  the  contrary, 
how  exceedingly  nice  of  you !  Isn't  it  one  of  the  advan- 
tages of  having  you  here  with  Edith — that  one  can  some- 
times see  you?" 

"Is  it  an  advantage,  though — sometimes  to  see  me?" 
she  retorted,  as  easily  as  before.  "Enough  of  an  advan- 
tage to  compensate  for  the  bother?  I  don't  mean  that 
you'd  consider  me  a  bother;  heavens,  no.  You'd  never 
give  me  as  much  flattery  as  that.  I  only  mean  that  I  must 
be  sometimes  in  the  way — that  you  must  like  to  keep 
to  Edith  yourself.  It's  ridiculous  she  and  I  are  friends, 
isn't  it?  I  suppose  your  wife  would  say  that  all  women's 
friendships  are  ridiculous.  She  probably  puts  us  down 
as  exactly  what  we  are — two  unattached,  childless 
women,  about  whom  men  don't  bother  and  who  have 
nothing  better  to  do.  She  always  has  the  perfect  phrase 
for  every  human  condition." 

Cushing's  amusement  deepened.  "Has  she?  You're 
so  determined  to  be  unattached  ?" 

"I'm  determined  in  nothing — surely  you  know  that — 
except  perhaps  in  my  affection  for  Edith.  Think  what 
she  rescues  me  from — dear  Edith!  If  you  could  guess 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    87 

all  the  things  any  woman  like  me,  without  much  money 
and  with  no  ties,  has  to  spend  her  time  in  avoiding!  If 
it  were  only  that  she  saves  me  from  people  I  detest  and 
whom  I  haven't  the  character  to  evade,  I  should  owe  her 
enough.  And  as  for  you" — she  paused — "and  as  for  its 
being  nice  of  me  to  see  you,  that's  nonsense.  You've 
known  all  along  that  you  could  see  me  whenever  you 
wanted  to."  She  gave  him  a  quick  look.  "You've  come 
now — you  came  to-day — because  you  thought  I  had  been 
nice.  Yet  you've  got  the  mental  reservation  that  after 
all  it  was  my  business  to  be  nice !  You're  not  the  person 
to  refuse  to  see  that  it  was  obviously  all  I  could  do,  are 
you  ?  But  I've  not  minded ;  for  that  matter,  I  mind  noth- 
ing." She  had  dropped  back  among  her  cushions  with 
an  air  of  resignation  in  her  own  amusement.  "I  mind 
nothing  until  I  come  in  at  night  sleepy  and  a  little  bat- 
tered and  say  to  myself,  'For  heaven's  sake  what's  the 
use  of  it  all?'" 

Gushing  lost  himself  for  a  moment  in  the  recollections 
her  tone  stirred  in  him.  It  was  her  tone,  indeed,  more 
than  what  she  said — her  agile  method  of  dealing  with  the 
surface  of  things,  in  talk  as  well  as  in  manner,  which 
reminded  him  of  more,  in  a  single  instant,  than  actual 
words.  In  one  form  or  another  he  had  never  heard  her 
fail  to  use  it.  He  could  have  predicted  the  way  she  would 
talk  as  accurately  as  he  could  have  foretold  the  strident 
colours  of  her  tea  gown  and  her  care  to  hold  her  head  so 
as  to  get  the  contrast  between  the  colour  of  her  hair  and 
the  cushion  behind  it.  Her  sense  of  effect  had  at  one 
time  amused  him,  even  if  it  had  never  convinced  him. 
It  had  been  quite  compatible  with  the  attraction  she  had 
had  for  him — and  at  a  time  when  his  own  discriminations 


88  MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

were  less  acute — that  he  should  all  along  have  been 
aware  of  the  disproportion  between  them.  He  remem- 
bered that  at  first  he  had  thought  her  cynicism  as  deco- 
rative as  the  rest  of  her.  But  towards  the  time  when 
they  had  both  begun  to  drift  from  a  situation  in  which 
there  was  little  to  hold  them,  it  had  seemed  to  him  more 
applied  and  forced  than  anything  else  about  her  and  to 
have  less  air  of  reality.  He  had  had  his  experiences  since 
in  methods  which  were  both  profound  and  spontaneous ; 
and  as  he  looked  across  at  her  it  struck  him  that  he,  of 
all  people,  could  have  told  her  that,  adroit  as  she  was, 
one  didn't  so  easily  get  the  natural  force  of  the  qualities 
she  imitated. 

Mrs.  Herring,  meanwhile,  had  bent  forward  to  pour 
out  his  tea,  and  as  she  raised  her  head  again,  with  her 
look  of  quizzical  interrogation,  she  brought  out :  "But  of 
course  there  was  a  reason  for  my  asking  you  to  come ; 
you've  understood  that." 

"You  wouldn't  have  asked  me  without  a  reason,  you 
mean  ?" 

Her  gaze  roamed  for  a  moment  around  the  room,  in 
the  wide  spaces  of  which  the  glow  of  the  fire  appeared  to 
enclose  and  isolate  them.  "No — you've  put  it  exactly. 
It's  been  easy  enough,  of  course,  when  we've  happened 
to  meet.  But  to  plan  a  meeting,  I  felt  that  you'd  feel  I 
needed  an  excuse."  She  smiled.  "Well,  my  excuse  is 
my  news.  I've  made  up  my  mind  to  marry." 

Gushing  heard  himself  answer  instantly,  in  the  usual 
terms  of  congratulation.  His  attention  scarcely  held 
enough  to  enable  him  to  gauge  what  he  said.  Mrs.  Her- 
ring had  done  nothing,  while  she  spoke,  but  drop  her  voice 
and  bend  forward  so  that  the  stronger  light  of  the  lamp 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    89 

beside  her  deepened  the  suggestions  of  her  face.  Yet  he 
had  never  felt  more  vividly  the  confusing  element  in  her 
— the  suspicions  one  had  of  what  was  behind  her  manner 
and  the  elaborate  negation  of  her  manner  itself. 

"And  who  is  it?  Since  you've  told  me  your  intention, 
you'll  tell  me  who's  to  benefit  by  it,"  he  ended. 

"Oh,  I'm  in  luck — astounding  luck.  It's  incredible  that 
such  a  happy  chance  should  have  befallen  a  rootless  crea- 
ture like  me.  I'm  engaged  to  Arthur  Irish.  Do  you 
know  him?"  And  to  Cushing's  protest  that,  if  any  one 
on  any  continent  could  escape  knowing  him,  his  millions 
and  his  extraordinary  collections  were  beyond  escape,  she 
smilingly  assented :  "You  see,  then,  it's  a  match — it's  an 
alliance.  I  don't  know  quite  how  we've  drifted  into  it. 
Of  course  all  that  really  interests  him  are  his  Grecos 
and  his  Ming.  But  I  suppose  that  at  times  they  grow 
monotonous  and  that  it  grows  monotonous  to  be  quoted 
as  the  most  expert  collector  in  all  America.  So  here  we 
are,  and  our  engagement's  an  accomplished  fact." 

Gushing  was  again  silent.  His  thoughts  were  dealing 
with  himself  more  rapidly  and  exactly  than  with  Mrs. 
Herring.  It  struck  him  that  his  marriage  had  taught  him 
the  lessons  which  made  him  best  able  to  understand  her. 
She  had  never  puzzled  him  except  when  she  touched  the 
serious,  and  then  only  because  she  showed  how  little  her 
seriousness  existed.  He  had  learned  to  measure  the  ex- 
tent of  a  woman's  qualities  rather  than  their  superficial 
definition,  and  that  for  Mrs.  Herring  to  lean  back,  in  a 
becoming  light,  and  talk  with  a  private  allusiveness  was 
not  enough  to  stir  interest  unless  there  was  a  correspond- 
ing emotion  behind  it.  His  wife,  he  reflected,  theatrical 
as  she  was,  "had  too  strong  a  dramatic  sense  not  to  have 


90    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

proved  to  him  that  human  relations,  to  be  interesting, 
needed  more  than  a  pose  and  an  implication. 

He  granted  that  it  was  one  of  the  absurd  contrasts  of 
experience  that  his  accusation  of  Mrs.  Herring  should 
be  that  she  was  what  Anne-Marie  would  have  called 
bloodless.  Yet  he  could  find  no  other  term  which  fitted 
her  as  well.  Every  glimpse  he  had  of  her  deeper  feel- 
ings was  so  complex  that  it  was  hopelessly  confusing. 
If  she  had  told  him  of  her  approaching  marriage  before 
she  told  people  generally,  he  knew  how  frequently,  dur- 
ing her  visits  to  Mrs.  Sale,  she  had  passed  a  half  hour  in 
his  company  rather  than  pass  it  alone.  For  the  first  time 
he  felt  a  keen  distaste  for  her  obtuseness.  He  could  un- 
derstand disgust  with  one's  memories,  but  he  could  not 
understand  being  without  them.  There  was  a  difference 
as  wide  as  the  world  between  such  an  attitude  and  the 
excessive  imaginativeness  of  feeling  in  his  wife — the  kind 
of  feeling  she  had  shown  him  when  they  were  engaged 
and  first  married  and  which  she  knew  so  well,  when  it 
suited  her,  how  to  show  still.  If  Anne-Marie  had  been 
in  such  a  situation  she  would  have  had  pro  founder  de- 
cencies than  these ;  yet  the  uncertainty  which  the  thought 
woke  arrested  him.  He  remembered  the  proof  he  had 
had  that,  underneath  all  her  complex  and  correct  ob- 
servances, she  was  at  times  crass. 

He  was  recalled  to  himself  by  seeing  that  Mrs.  Her- 
ring had  turned  back  from  the  fire,  on  which  her  gaze 
had  been  fixed,  and  the  next  moment  she  suddenly  rose. 

"I've  been  unfair  to  you,"  she  broke  out.  "I  haven't 
been  quite  straight — ah,  but  what  a  relief  it  is  to  say  it !" 

Gushing  had  risen,  too.    His  surprise  held  his  eyes  on 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     91 

hers  and  he  saw  that  under  his  gaze  the  colour  rose 
quickly  and  spread  over  her  face. 

"No ;  I've  been  odious — and  I've  been  absurd,  which  is 
worse,"  she  declared.  "Or  is  it  worse  ?  That's  my  usual 
vocabulary;  and  I'm  sick  to  death  of  my  usual  vocabu- 
lary." 

A  few  moments  before,  Gushing  was  clearly  aware, 
he  would  have  answered  her  with  some  temporising  ex- 
postulation; but  in  the  intervening  seconds  she  had  so 
changed — scarcely  so  much  changed,  perhaps,  as  broken 
up  her  complex  system  of  defence  and  let  him  see  the 
basis  beneath — that  he  never,  for  an  instant,  considered 
being  less  honest  than  she.  "But  you've  never  been 
odious,"  he  began;  "I  don't  see " 

"That's  it !"  She  caught  him  up.  "You  haven't  seen. 
It  hasn't  been  your  fault;  you  simply  haven't  seen." 

She  spoke  without  the  faintest  note  of  recrimination; 
merely,  as  it  seemed  to  Gushing,  as  if  she  stated  an  incon- 
trovertible fact.  The  press  of  the  inferences  behind  it, 
all  the  more  insistent  and  strange  because  of  the  clear 
calmness  of  her  voice,  blurred  his  mind  for  an  instant. 

"Ah,  if  I  haven't  seen — if  I've  been  obtuse,  I'm  so  end- 
lessly sorry !  I've  wanted  to  be  considerate.  I've  wanted 
not  only  to  foresee  what  could  recall  to  you  what  was 
disagreeable  and  what  could  annoy  you" — he  felt  the 
words  hopelessly  inadequate — "I've  wanted,  too,  to  im- 
agine what  could  annoy  you,  and  deflect  it  before  it 
reached  you.  But  you've  never  given  me  any  rea- 
son  " 

"No;  I've  not  given  you  reasons  of  any  sort,"  she  as- 
sented, still  with  the  same  even  tonelessness. 

"If  you'd  been  dissatisfied  with  my  conduct,  if  you'd 


92   MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

shown  me  a  sign,  I  should  have  tried  not  to  be  enough 

of  an  ass  to  miss  it.  I've  wanted  to  spare  you "  He 

felt  himself  flush.  "But  there's  seemed  to  be  so  little  to 
spare !  You're  so  sure  of  yourself ;  and  if  you'd  felt  me 
indelicate,  you'd  scarcely  have  come  here,  to  Edith.  Have 
you  thought  me  indelicate?  Is  that  it?" 

She  shook  her  head ;  her  eyes  held  persistently  to  his, 
and  the  only  additional  sign  he  caught,  through  her  si- 
lence, was  in  the  quick  tremor  of  her  throat. 

"Then,  if  I've  not  been  indelicate,  I  must  have  under- 
stood at  least  something.  I  can't,  in  that  case,  have  been 
so  hopelessly  obtuse!  What  I've  seen  least  of  all  was  any 
possible  dishonesty  on  your  part."  He  paused.  "What 
dishonesty  was  it?"  He  continued  to  search  her  eyes, 
in  the  stress  of  his  uncertainty,  and  then  he  drew  sharply 
back.  "You  don't  mean " 

She  smiled  faintly.  "So  you  see  at  last!  That's  just 
what  I  do  mean — that  I've  never  for  a  second,  in  the  last 
three  years,  ceased  to  care  for  you." 

Gushing  wavered  for  an  instant;  then  he  turned  and 
walked  quickly  to  the  other  end  of  the  room.  He  had  a 
confused  sense  that,  however  much  she  was  hurt,  it  was 
kinder  not  to  let  her  see  his  face,  and  the  immense  pity 
for  her  and  the  detestation  of  his  own  fatuity  which  must 
be  written  on  it.  The  humiliating  fact  of  his  obtuseness 
ruined  whatever  he  could  say  to  her  before  it  was  spoken. 
As  he  waited  and  then  turned  back  to  where  she  stood, 
the  humiliation  grew  and  spread,  over  occasions  which 
he  had  half  forgotten.  And  the  immense  security,  he 
thought,  with  which  he  had  supposed  one  could  accept 
the  termination  of  a  human  relationship  and  cut  its 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    93 

threads  with  the  same  precision  as  if  they  had  been  inani- 
mate! 

He  paused  beside  the  fire  again  and  leaned  over  the 
back  of  a  chair  towards  her.  "My  dear  Geraldine,"  he 
began  in  a  low  tone,  "do  I  owe  you  for  that?" 

She  moved  restlessly.  "Oh,  you  owe  me  for  nothing! 
It  doesn't  matter.  All  that  matters  is  that  I've  been  dis- 
honest— hideously  dishonest." 

"Never  with  me." 

"Yes — always  with  you ;  wasn't  it  dishonest  to  ignore, 
to  pretend  indifference,  to  deny — to  deny" — she  hesi- 
tated, and  then  added  simply — "what  was  the  strongest 
thing  in  me?" 

Another  wave  of  abasement  seemed  to  break  over 
Cushing's  head.  "But  it  wasn't  denying  to  live  pluckily, 
to  let  it  make  you  as  fine  a  person  as  you  are.  That 
wasn't  denying." 

"No,  I  haven't  failed  it  altogether."  She  smiled  again, 
and  it  seemed  to  Gushing  sadly  significant  that  it  should 
be  when  she  changed  her  expression  in  her  effort  to 
affect  lightness  that  it  disclosed  the  full  misery  of  her 
face.  "I've  had  my  consolations;  some  of  them  poor 
enough,  but  some  of  them  good.  The  best  have  been 
when  I  felt  free  to  let  it  influence  me — when  it  hasn't 
been  just  an  ache,  but  when  it's  really  helped." 

Gushing  broke  out :  "Dishonest !  The  only  dishonesty 
was  that  when  you  told  me  you'd  rather  end  things  be- 
tween us  you  didn't  let  me  see!" 

She  shook  her  head,  with  an  odd  suggestion  of  the  judi- 
cial manner  with  which  she  was  apt  to  deliver  her  tart 
judgments.  "No,  I'm  not  definitely  sure  that  then  there 
was  anything  special  to  see.  After  my  husband  left  me — 


94    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

well,  I  don't  know,  but  it  seemed  as  if  there  was  only  one 
thing  I  wouldn't  do  and  that  was  to  try  another  marriage. 
When  you  proposed  to  me,  you  know,  I  laughed  at  you. 
I  was  prepared  for  anything  that  meant  an  indefinite  re- 
lation. It  wasn't  you  who  prepared  me  for  it.  I  was 
defiant — I  think  that  was  it.  I  wanted  to  be  as  free  as  all 
my  friends  were.  I  wanted  to  come  and  go  as  I  pleased, 
to  have  the  full  use  of  my  own  money.  It  isn't  a  fortune, 
but  my  husband  had  squandered  it  so!  I  knew  just  what 
I  meant  to  do — just  what  I  had  the  bravado  to  do,  and  so 
I  did  it.  No,  I'm  not  sure  that  then — when  I  first  knew 
you — there  was  anything  definite." 

"Then  you  changed?  But  why,"  he  protested  again, 
"when  you  did  change,  didn't  you  let  me  see?  I  didn't 
marry  for  another  year!" 

Her  smile  again  threw  into  light  the  suppressed  feeling 
in  her  face.  "I  wasn't  such  a  fool  as  that.  You  see,  it 
wasn't  that  I  changed,  or  that  I  began  to  care,  as  much  as 
that  you'd  changed  me.  I  don't  suppose  you  know  what 
a  definite  sort  of  person  you  are — that  you  do  change  one. 
I  think  what  began  to  influence  me — funnily  enough — 
was  my  understanding  that  I'd  never  do — that,  for  any 
question  of  real  feeling  on  your  part,  I  was  hopelessly 
inadequate.  You  never  talked  about  it ;  but  somehow,  in 
those  few  months,  and  though  you  were  glad  enough 
I'd  consented  to  what  I  did  consent  to,  since  I  wouldn't 
consent  to  marriage,  you  made  me  feel  there  was  a  line  I 
never  passed.  You're  a  person  who  can  really  care — I 
mean  just  that.  And  I  saw  what  it  would  take  to  make 
you  care.  You  wanted  some  one  to  gather  up  all  the  loose 
things  in  you — the  hopes  and  the  failures,  the  capacities 
and  the  incapacities."  She  looked  at  him  curiously. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE;  DU  CHASTEL    95 

"Perhaps  you've  learned  that,  too;  it  doesn't  matter  so 
much  what  feeling  people  give  us,  but  what  feeling  we 
give  them." 

She  was  silent  for  an  instant;  then  she  made  a  quick 
gesture  of  impatience. 

"Oh,  I'm  not  going  to  deny  it.  I  knew  you  never  cared 
for  me.  I  was  just  the  person  in  your  way — we  all  know 
how  those  things  happen.  And  at  first,  honestly,  it  was 
the  same  with  me.  You  were  just  the  person  who,  at  the 
right  time,  was  in  my  way.  But  afterwards — well,  it  was 
different." 

She  had  ended  as  briefly  and  finally  as  she  had  put  the 
statement  before  him;  and  for  a  moment  Gushing  could 
only  wait,  passing  for  the  hundredth  time  over  the  futile 
reproaches  of  his  own  blindness.  He  was  aware  now 
that  his  single  dread  was  that  he  should  prove  himself  in- 
capable of  recognising  the  truth  of  her  confidence;  a 
truth  so  palpable  that  even  if  he  could  have  controverted 
it  to  her  advantage  he  knew  it  would  have  been  dishon- 
est to  do  so. 

"You  know  the  endlessness  of  my  desire  to  help  you," 
he  began. 

"But  you  have  helped  me — you  do  help  me." 

"Ah,  in  such  inadequate  ways!" 

She  shook  her  head  again.  "No — practically.  That, 
you  see,  is  my  gain.  Oh,  when  we  broke  things  up — 
when  I  insisted  on  it — I  was  utterly  wretched.  I  was 
confused,  then ;  I  was  afraid ;  I  didn't  understand.  I  was 
still  angry  with  life.  But  then,  after  that,  I  learned.  I 
learned  what  it  was  really  to  care.  You've  done  that  for 
me,  you  see." 

"And  what  you've  done  for  me — the  thing  without  re- 


96    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

turn,  the  thing  which,  in  my  immense  stupidity,  I  never 
saw " 

She  interrupted.  "You  weren't  stupid  not  to  see  it. 
That  was  really  my  fault.  I've  covered  things  up  so — 
one  does,  somehow,  and  they  become  so  obscured  that 
they  only  exist  down  deep  in  one.  Oh,  it  hasn't  all  been 
plain  sailing.  I  resented  it;  I  fought  and  I  protested. 
But  that's  over  now.  I've  recognised" — she  made  a  quick 
gesture — "where  I  stand." 

"But  we  none  of  us  see  that,  irrevocably.  Life  changes 
so — it'll  change  for  you.  In  my  own  life" — he  hesitated 
and  then  pursued — "in  my  marriage,  I've  seen  what  one 
can  gain.  You're  to  marry;  you'll  make  new  ties  for 
yourself;  you'll  see — it'll  be  different." 

Her  eyes  again  caught  his.  "But  I  don't  want  it  to  be 
different." 

"But  my  poor  child" — the  words  escaped  him  before 
he  was  aware  of  it — "there's  no  use  in  that!" 

"Of  course  I  see  there's  no  use  in  it."  As  she  spoke 
and  then  waited  she  presented  to  Gushing  the  full  frank- 
ness of  her  look.  Its  message  was  deep  and  final ;  all  the 
more  so,  he  thought,  because  of  the  lingering  sense,  in 
the  back  of  his  mind,  of  her  strange  incongruities.  It  was 
like  the  contrast  between  the  vital  significance  of  her 
words  and  her  appearance — as  if  she  had  not  been  able  to 
shed  all  the  outward  signs  of  her  complexity,  and  as  if 
her  elaborate  dress  and  her  general  air  of  arrangement 
were  there  to  remind  him  that,  later  on,  she  would  slip 
back  into  her  armour.  Yet,  whatever  she  did,  Gushing 
thought,  he  would  never  again  see  in  her  anything  less 
vivid  than  what  her  face  now  showed.  It  had  always 
seemed  to  him  less  a  controlled  face  than  an  expression- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    97 

less  one.  The  face  he  most  watched  passed  before  his 
eyes.  Alert  and  alive  as  it  was,  Anne-Marie's  quick 
changes  of  expression  registered  emotions  rather  than 
the  sentiments  behind  them;  in  Geraldine's  face  the  feel- 
ing seemed  gradually  yet  clearly  to  have  risen  to  the  sur- 
face, like  long  quivers  of  light  on  the  surface  of  a  stream. 

He  heard  that  she  was  going  on :  "I  never  thought,  of 
course,  that  it  would  be  like  this  to-day.  I  meant  to  tell 
you  of  my  engagement — that  it  really  seemed  best,  after 
all,  to  settle  myself.  I've  thought  it  out  for  some  weeks, 
and  taking  things  at  their  face  value  I'd  decided  to  do  it. 
But  there  I'd  reckoned  without  you,  you  see.  When  you 
came  in,  when  we  began  to  talk — oh,  it  wasn't  anything 
you  said;  it  was  what  I  remembered  that  made  me  feel 
unjust.  I  felt  I'd  been  unjust,  not  only  to  myself  and  not 
only  to  what  you'd  made  me  feel,  but  to  Arthur." 

"But  you'd  felt  you  could  care  for  Irish — you  must 
have  felt  that !"  He  searched  for  his  words.  "And  those 
loyalties  are  such  cruelly  hopeless  things.  I  can  only  say 
it  to  you  again — things  do  change." 

"I  know"— she  hesitated— "but  it's  change  that  I  don't 
want.  I  don't  deceive  myself.  I  could  be  happy  enough 
with  Arthur,  with  all  that  money  and  that  wonderful  life 
to  help.  It's  just  that  now  I  understand  it:  I'd  rather 
be  happy  in  my  own  way.  Of  course  I  can't  marry," 
she  ended. 

When  he  had  left  the  house  and  turned  into  the  street 
which  would  take  him  home,  it  seemed  to  Gushing  that 
he  was  in  reality  only  passing  from  stage  to  stage  of  his 
memories. 

It  was  the  first  time  that  he  had  ever  understood  how 


98    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

briefly  and  temporarily,  even  at  the  time  of  its  existence, 
he  had  regarded  the  episode  of  his  relation  with  Mrs. 
Herring.  It  was  true  that  he  had  been  definitely  under 
the  spell  of  her  brilliancy  and  of  the  easy  terms  on  which 
she  had  accepted  his  companionship.  Men  liked  her,  and 
he  had  liked  her,  when  chances  threw  them  constantly 
together.  He  had  been  young  enough  to  be  glad  of  the 
absence  in  her  of  too  conventional  demands  and  restric- 
tions. Her  house — perhaps  retaining  the  habits  of  its 
late  master — had  been  easily  and  delightfully  open  to 
every  one ;  and  Gushing  had  at  first  gone  no  further  than 
to  fall  insensibly  into  the  lack  of  that  formality  which  it 
was  instinctive  with  his  race  to  regard  as  restrictive. 

He  had  always,  and  also  instinctively,  drawn  the  sharp- 
est line  between  the  morals  of  the  women  of  his  own 
class  and  the  women  of  the  class  in  which  Mrs.  Herring's 
husband  had  been  most  at  home.  He  knew  that  it  was  as 
a  rule  only  in  older  countries  that,  in  a  woman  of  certain 
antecedents,  feeling  reached  the  point  of  definite  actions. 
The  indiscretions  of  the  women  he  knew  had  seldom 
seemed  to  him  more  than  indiscretions,  which  never  lost 
a  careful  sense  of  expediency.  He  seldom  saw  about  him 
situations  which  entailed  the  loss  of  comforts  and  of 
superficial  conformity  ;  and  this  conclusion  had  made  him 
regard  his  growing  intimacy  with  Mrs.  Herring  less  seri- 
ously and  more  as  one  of  the  several  others  which,  as  he 
suspected,  she  could  have  at  her  disposal  whenever  she 
chose.  After  a  few  weeks,  when  the  charm  of  a  summer, 
which  Gushing  had  spent  near  her  country  cottage,  was 
upon  them  both,  he  had  asked  her  to  marry  him.  Her 
refusal  had  given  an  edge  to  his  enthusiasm.  It  had  been 
an  inevitable  consequence,  with  her  declared  indepen- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    99 

dence  and  her  love  of  adventure,  that  the  matter  should 
not  end  there.  But  he  could  still  see  before  him  the  vivid- 
ness of  the  summer  day  when,  standing  beside  him  on  the 
shining  strip  of  sand  and  with  the  sun  warming  and 
softening  the  radiance  of  the  picture  she  made,  she  had 
turned  to  him  with  the  smiling  consent  in  her  eyes  for 
which  he  had  been  watching ;  and  his  own  latent  sense — 
as  plainly  part  of  the  picture  as  if  it  had  visibly  stood 
out — of  an  odd  regret  that,  since  he  liked  her  so  much, 
she  should  prove  herself  so  easily  accessible. 

It  was  always  when  they  were  happiest  that  the  con- 
sciousness of  this  fact  had  returned.  Gushing  hoped  that 
he  had  a  clear  conscience  so  far  as  women  were  con- 
cerned. He  had  accepted  the  general  standards  of  his 
sex,  but  he  had  too  definite  a  sense  of  chivalry  to  limit  it 
to  occasions  when  he  could  easily  exercise  it,  and  he  had 
tried  to  be  what  he  termed  "decent"  in  all  the  chances  of 
his  life.  It  was  exactly  the  point  that,  because  Mrs.  Her- 
ring was  so  integrally  a  part  of  his  and  his  sister's  world, 
he  should  have  felt  secretly  debased  by  the  traffic  in  sur- 
face emotions  in  which  he  was  engaged.  Throughout  the 
few  months  while  the  tie  between  them  lasted  he  had 
never  entirely  freed  himself  from  this  thought.  It  un- 
derlay the  happiest  hours  they  had  passed  together  and 
was  the  foundation,  as  he  saw  it  now,  for  the  first  stirring 
of  his  restlessness.  He  could  not  say  it  had  been  he  who 
first  tired  of  the  situation.  Geraldine  had  been  just  as 
companionable,  as  easily  acceptant  of  his  mood  and  as 
without  reluctances  and  misinterpretations.  But  he  had 
been  more  and  more  definitely  aware  that  he  tired  of  a 
relation  without  any  logical  consequences.  There  was 
nothing  to  interest  his  imagination — no  obsession,  it  was 


100     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

true,  but  also  none  of  that  demand  which,  as  it  seemed 
to  him,  was  the  inseparable  beauty  of  all  relations.  He 
could  recall  hour  after  hour,  instance  after  instance,  when 
either  her  perversity  or  her  obtuseness  had  changed  the 
possibility  of  his  own  feeling  into  triviality,  and  when  he 
had  turned  from  her  with  a  vague  resentment  of  such 
persistent  limitations. 

One  of  the  results  of  the  valiant  frankness  she  had 
just  shown  was  that,  in  looking  back,  he  could  not  hon- 
estly change  his  version  of  what  had  happened.  He  had 
done  his  best,  and  done  it  to  some  extent  in  spite  of  her. 
But  underneath  his  every  smallest  memory  of  those 
months  there  would  now  always  lie  the  strangest  contra- 
dictions in  her  and  the  illuminating  fact  of  her  feeling. 
He  might  not  be  able  to  reconstruct,  either  for  better  or 
worse,  his  own  part.  But  he  was  rapidly  reconstructing 
hers.  He  could  see  reasons  which  he  had  never  seen 
before  in  her  moodiness,  her  impatience,  her  perversities ; 
or  if  they  were  not  reasons,  at  least  they  were  explana- 
tions— explanations  attested  by  the  silent  avowal,  deeper 
than  the  avowal  in  her  words,  which  she  had  let  him  see. 

His  thoughts  hung  most  persistently  about  the  final 
day  they  had  spent  together.  They  had  gone  off  on  a 
motor  trip,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  and  had  put  up  one 
night,  cold  and  tired  from  a  long  run,  at  an  out-of-the- 
way  inn.  Gushing  seemed  to  recollect  the  gathering  irri- 
tability with  which  he  had  taken  his  seat  opposite  Mrs. 
Herring,  in  the  tropically  heated  dining  room  filled  with 
the  odours  of  stale  food  and  beer.  The  adjustments  of 
their  relation  were  not  fine  enough  for  premonitions,  but 
his  sense  of  an  impending  end  had  been  none  the  less 
acute  because  it  seemed  practical  and  consequent.  Per- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     101 

haps  it  had  been  the  long  days  together  which  had  dis- 
placed the  confidence  of  both  of  them.  He  knew  that  he 
had  been  plainly  unreasonable,  first  about  the  food,  which 
was  execrable,  and  then  because  Geraldine  had  not  ap- 
peared to  mind  that  some  men  who  came  in  had  recog- 
nised them  and  sent  her  a  message  of  some  irony  in  their 
greeting. 

It  had  been  when  she  laid  down  her  fork  and  pushed 
away  her  plate  that  she  had  abruptly  said :  "I  think  our 
time's  up;  let's  admit  it,"  and  had  smiled  noncommittally 
at  his  protests.  It  was  vividly  present  to  Gushing  that 
he  had  not  protested  at  her  decision  but  at  her  lack  of 
feeling.  She  could  fling  her  conclusion  at  him  in  this 
way,  he  had  said  impatiently,  and  yet  while  she  was 
reaching  it  she  had  contentedly  made  a  good  meal.  She 
had  been  impatient  in  her  turn  and  had  answered  him 
irritably  and  tersely.  Yet  just  before  she  rose,  across 
the  fumes  of  the  room  and  the  trivial  decorations  of  their 
little  table,  he  had  caught  her  eyes  fixed  on  him.  He 
wondered  now — it  was  his  sharpest  reproach — why  he 
had  not  seen  that  in  the  brightness  of  the  look  with 
which  they  clung  to  his  there  had  flashed  a  sudden  appeal. 


X 


AT  his  door  he  was  told  that  Mrs.  Gushing  was  at 
home  and  had  had  her  tea  in  the  library. 
Gushing  mounted  the  stairs  with  a  strange  sense  of  his 
return  to  a  world  where  realities  were  scarcely  as  real 
as  the  realities  in  his  mind.    It  was  not  until  he  laid  his 
hancj  on  the  library  door  that  it  occurred  to  him  that,  for 


102  MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

the  first  time,  he  must  compose  his  face  before  he  saw 
his  wife.  The  thought  was  effaced,  a  moment  later,  by 
the  palpable  absurdity  of  such  concealments. 

Anne-Marie  was  in  front  of  the  fire,  her  slim  black 
figure  sunk  in  one  of  his  deepest  chairs.  Her  feet,  in 
elaborate  slippers,  rested  upon  the  low  fender ;  and  Cush- 
ing's  instinctive  amusement  at  the  invariable  effectiveness 
of  her  attitudes  was  coupled  with  the  vague  annoyance 
he  always  felt  with  the  inexcusably  bad  taste  of  her 
shoes. 

She  lifted  her  smile  to  his,  with  one  long  hand  in  the 
pages  of  her  book. 

"Ah,  my  dear!  And  you  have  had  your  tea?  Some 
people  came  in ;  and  since  they  left  I  have  read  and 
read.  Done!  And  have  you  amused  yourself?" 

Gushing  had  dropped  into  his  usual  chair,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  hearth.  As  he  looked  across  at  her,  some 
accent  in  the  banality  of  her  words  made  him  feel  that 
she  literally  awaited  his  reply. 

"Yes,  I've  amused  myself,  as  you  put  it,  after  a  fash- 
ion; though  what  amuses  you  wouldn't  always  amuse 
me." 

"And  what  seems  to  me  incredible  would  not  neces- 
sarily be  incredible  to  you,"  she  supplemented  instantly. 
"That  we  know.  And  what  you  have  been  doing — what- 
ever it  is — that  also  is  included  in  the  dissimilarities  be- 
tween us  ?  Yes  ?" 

Gushing  hesitated  an  instant  and  then  he  stretched  out 
his  hand  and  took  hers.  He  was  still  stirred  by  the  reve- 
lation he  had  just  seen,  and  the  touch  of  Anne-Marie's 
smooth  cool  skin  seemed  like  a  vague  reassurance.  Yet 
it  was  while  his  hand  lay  on  hers  that  he  felt  the  lack  of 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     103 

any  real  significance  in  the  gesture.  It  brought  back  to 
him  the  recollection  of  a  corresponding  sign  he  had  made 
to  her,  a  week  or  so  before.  It  had  been  on  a  day  when 
he  had  felt  impelled  to  make  a  definite  effort  to  bring  her 
to  closer  terms  with  him.  He  had  been  stirred  out  of  his 
habitual  reserve  by  the  loneliness  which  settled  on  him 
more  and  more  heavily,  and  he  had  asked  her  to  spend 
the  afternoon  with  him  and  had  taken  her  off  to  a  con- 
cert. He  had  said  to  himself  that  he  didn't  care  if  her 
consent  were  perfunctory — that  she  must  somehow  un- 
derstand the  inner  needs  which  made  him  appeal  to  her. 
Everything  had  tended  to  move  him — the  vast  volume  of 
sound  in  which  individualities  were  dissolved,  the  strain 
of  his  own  uncertainties,  and  most  of  all  Anne-Marie's 
clear  profile  beside  him,  with  her  pale  cheek  showing  its 
creamy  tint  against  the  black  of  her  collar.  She  had 
fastened  some  red  roses  in  her  dress,  and  it  struck  him 
that  he  had  lately  told  her  that  he  liked  them ;  and  in  the 
lull  between  two  movements  of  a  symphony  he  put  out 
his  hand  and  took  hers. 

There  had  been  something  disconcerting  in  the  very 
quickness  with  which  her  own  black-gloved  hand  returned 
the  pressure  of  his.  It  had  come  to  Gushing  with  a  shock 
of  astonishment  that  she  felt  his  presence  no  more  than 
she  felt  the  music  which  again  flooded  the  hall.  She  was 
correctly  attentive,  to  it  as  to  him,  but  where  he  felt  in 
the  majesty  of  sound  the  stir  of  all  life,  with  its  immi- 
nent sorrows  and  its  desired  happiness,  she  was  un- 
aware and  deaf.  He  had  had  his  own  experience  with 
her  to  prove  that  she  felt,  but  she  felt  only  the  personal 
applications  and  allusions.  To  fuse  herself  with  the 
needs  and  expressions  of  humanity  at  large  was  as  for- 


104    MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

eign  to  her  as  to  take  the  universe  into  her  confidence. 
She  simply  didn't  understand ;  and  as  they  drove  off  to- 
gether, after  the  concert,  he  had  felt  the  dryness  of  his 
own  manner  return  to  match  the  perfect  sincerity  of  the 
interest  with  which,  as  she  looked  out  of  the  carriage  win- 
dow, she  was  commenting  on  the  eccentricity  of  the  win- 
ter fashions. 

He  knew  that  their  difficulties  were  not  always  as  in- 
tangible as  this,  and  only  the  night  before  he  had  felt 
between  them  the  discrepancy  which  comes  when  the 
forces  which  make  a  sympathy  are  too  much  worn  and 
too  uneven.  To  love  her  in  certain  ways  was  none  the 
less  to  admit  how  difficult  she  was  in  others.  Yet  his 
basic  loyalty  was  never  firmer  than  when  he  even  men- 
tally questioned  it;  and  the  glance  he  now  sent  her  sof- 
tened. 

"I  wonder  if  I  shall  ever  become  accustomed  to  the 
fact  that  I've  you  to  come  back  to !  I  never  come  in  here 
without  seeing  you.  I  see  you  so  vividly  when  you're 
not  here.  That's  one  of  your  astonishing  ways — you  fill 
a  room  with  yourself.  But  I  see,  too,  all  the  dull  years 
I  spent  here  without  you " 

She  had  not  spoken,  but  the  incisiveness  of  her  steady 
look  was  so  definite  that  it  arrested  him. 

"I  suppose  you  will  know  if  it  is  true  or  not — the  ru- 
mour I  hear  that  Mrs.  Herring  and  Arthur  Irish  are  to 
marry?"  she  asked. 

"You've  heard  that?" 

"I  have  heard  it  rumoured  for  some  time,  so  far  as  ru- 
mour goes.  Within  the  last  day  or  so,  I  have  heard  it 
was  definite." 

He  released  her  hand  and  sank  back  in  his  chair.    "So 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     105 

far  as  the  definiteness  goes — you've  seen  enough  of  Mrs. 
Herring,  since  she's  been  with  Edith,  to  know  she's  not  a 
definite  person."  He  paused.  "I've  just  now  been  at 
Edith's — I've  been  talking  to  Geraldine." 

"Yes  ?"  She  had  straightened  herself,  and  he  felt  the 
play  of  her  clear  eyes  on  his  face.  "And  why  should  you 
consider  it  necessary  to  tell  me  where  you  have  been?" 

Gushing  smiled.  "My  dear,  if  your  methods  are  simple 
they're  also  sometimes  incredibly  tortuous.  I  don't  know 
why." 

"Just  as  you  frequently  go  to  see  other  women ;  exactly ! 
I  see !"  Her  foot  tapped  evenly  against  the  fender.  "My 
dear  Paul,  you  are  far  cleverer  than  I  used  to  believe 
you!" 

Her  tone  was  still  so  light  and  so  impervious  that 
Gushing  felt  the  awkwardness  of  his  own  quick  resent- 
ment, and  he  tried  to  temper  it. 

"It's  sometimes  difficult  to  tell  what  meaning  you  want 
one  to  attach  to  what  you  say.  You  don't  mean  to  make 
your  tribute  to  my  cleverness  a  little  of  an  insult,  but  you 
do.  I've  had  very  little  use  for  certain  sorts  of  clever- 
ness, thank  heaven — for  shifts  or  for  evasions ;  and  even 
less  use  for  them  when  they're  so  well  done  that  they 
succeed " 

Her  silence  again  silenced  him.  She  had  continued  to 
watch  him  without  the  slightest  break  in  her  inflexibility. 
"She  sent  for  you,  did  she  not?"  she  asked  presently. 

"Yes;  Mrs.  Herring  sent  for  me — she  wanted  to  see 
me;  but " 

"But  how  do  I  know  ?  Ah,  those  things  declare  them- 
selves so  easily!  One  does  not  even  have  to  keep  one's 
ears  open  to  hear  them." 


106     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"That's  not  the  point — how  you  should  hear  them,"  he 
retorted  quickly.  "The  point  is  that  I  won't  permit  you 
to  think  that  there's  any  reason  why  you  shouldn't  hear 
everything  that  concerns  me." 

She  nodded  briefly,  with  her  lips  closely  pressed  to- 
gether. "I  see!  And  is  she  to  marry  Mr.  Irish?" 

He  was  annoyed  to  feel  his  colour  rise.  "Mrs.  Her- 
ring's plans — I've  told  you  so — are  indefinite." 

"You  mean  that  you  will  not  admit  they  are  definite," 
she  corrected  him.  "In  your  fantastic  view,  you've  no 
right  to  tell  me.  Is  that  it  ?  And  why,  pray,  have  you  not 
the  right  ?  Why,  with  me,  should  you  not  admit  it  ?  Why 
should  you  be  so  careful  where  she  is  concerned  ?  I  can 
assure  you  that  she  is  a  woman  who  has  not  always 
either  expected  or  received  so  much  consideration !" 

"She's  a  woman  who  deserves  both  my  consideration 
and  yours,  and  who  shall  have  it,"  said  Gushing  dryly. 

She  had  risen,  and  she  nodded  again,  still  with  her  per- 
fect ease  and  with  her  smile  only  the  faintest  bit  more 
strained.  "So  you  will  tell  me  nothing?" 

"I'll  tell  you  nothing !"  His  retort,  Gushing  heard,  was 
as  quick  and  as  clear  as  her  question.  A  moment  later  he 
began:  "But,  Anne-Marie,  why  should  I  tell  you — or 
why  shouldn't  I  tell  you  ?  Is  it  such  a  little  thing,  to  trust 
a  person  as  you've  trusted  me?" 

She  gave  him  a  long,  inscrutable  look.  He  knew  how 
well  she  could  charge  the  mere  message  of  her  eyes 
with  feeling,  but  he  had  never  been  as  conscious  of  con- 
flicting causes  in  her  and  of  his  own  inability  to  name 
them.  She  gave  him  the  impression  that,  with  her  con- 
stant dramatic  sense,  she  took  her  time  and  waited  to 
move  until  he  had  fully  registered  the  fact  of  all  that  she 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     107 

on  her  side  registered.  Then  she  walked  across  the 
room,  and  a  second  later  the  door  had  closed  behind 
her. 

Gushing  continued  to  stand  motionless,  in  his  turn,  with 
his  eyes  passing  slowly  around  the  familiar  room.  His 
perceptive  sense  reminded  him  that  it  would  take  a  gradu- 
ally built  superstructure  of  clearer  recollections  to  efface 
the  thoughts  with  which  the  last  few  moments  had  peo- 
pled his  surroundings.  He  had  never  before  felt  his  wife 
so  definitely  and  antagonistically  distant.  It  was  strange 
that  Mrs.  Herring  should  be  the  person  to  show  him  how 
actual  and  practical  the  distance  was.  Whenever  he  had 
thought  of  Geraldine  before  it  had  been  with  the  secure 
sense  of  his  own  deep  sentiment.  Now  he  was  confus- 
edly aware  that  he  had  not  the  fact  of  an  established  feel- 
ing to  compare  to  her  and  to  make  her  show  all  her  trivi- 
ality. The  unspoken  criticism  in  his  wife  had  disar- 
ranged all  his  landmarks,  and  for  a  moment  he  felt  as  if 
even  the  basis  of  his  pity  for  what  he  had  seen  that  after- 
noon had  lost  its  sincerity  and  its  certainty. 

He  broke  away  with  an  effort  from  the  heaviness  and 
confusion  of  his  thoughts,  and  turned  from  the  fireplace. 
As  he  moved  his  foot  struck  the  French  book  his  wife 
had  dropped  when  she  rose,  and  he  bent  to  pick  it  up. 
Some  impulse  made  him  pause  and  turn  the  pages  over, 
with  an  odd  imaginative  sense  of  their  connection  with 
his  present  state  of  mind.  He  had  bought  the  book  a  few 
days  before,  with  the  vague  purpose  of  refuting  Anne- 
Marie's  claim  that  he  didn't  read  enough  of  the  best  writ- 
ing in  the  world.  Gushing,  if  he  read  sporadically,  did  so 
with  some  continuity  of  interest.  In  his  younger  days  he 
had  had  his  period  of  being  amused  by  things  of  this  type, 


108    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

but  with  the  last  few  years  his  amusement  had  lapsed  into 
boredom.  He  required  of  a  book  some  dignity  of  sub- 
ject, and  much  of  the  modern  French  literature  seemed 
to  treat  of  the  abnormal.  He  had  never  felt  this  more 
strongly  than  in  reading  the  volume  he  now  held,  and 
he  had  closed  it  with  the  conclusion  that  all  analysis 
resulted  in  neurosis.  He  had  told  Anne-Marie  that  it 
was  a  beastly  book,  on  the  same  old  themes,  and  that  if 
she  couldn't  do  better  than  that  in  her  recommenda- 
tions  !  One  of  his  constant  mischances  with  her,  as 

he  had  often  granted,  was  that  he  was  so  frequently  right, 
and  he  had  on  this  occasion  a  pardonable  pleasure  in  the 
fact  that  after  she  had  looked  the  story  through  again  she 
had  acknowledged  that  it  wasn't  altogether  a  good  speci- 
men. 

Yet  what  had  astonished  him  most  was  that  all  her 
apology  granted  was  that  the  book  was  not  well  done. 
Her  intellectual  separations  in  such  matters  and  the  nat- 
ural honesty  of  a  point  of  view  which  saw  mental 
processes  dispassionately  always  baffled  him.  Somehow 
her  sincere  incapacity  to  share  his  real  objections  had 
seemed  to  link  her  closer  to  the  book.  He  was  conscious 
that  it  had  not  been  the  presentation  of  such  aspects  of 
life  which  he  resented.  If  one  did  not  often  meet  them, 
in  the  usual  run  of  events,  one  knew  that  they  existed, 
and  one  knew  too,  with  a  certain  amount  of  experience, 
how  extravagant  they  were.  The  violent  and  the  ex- 
traordinary were  too  extraneous  to  seem  either  reason- 
able or  interesting.  It  was  rather  the  odd  relation  be- 
tween his  wife  and  such  a  book  which  now  pressed 
upon  him  for  recognition.  He  could  remember  fleeting 
signs  in  her — a  word,  a  gesture,  the  slow  implications 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     109 

of  her  intimate  looks,  which  he  could  match  to  page 
after  page  of  it,  and  which  reminded  him  of  nothing  so 
much  as  of  the  expression  which  from  time  to  time  had 
glanced  across  Madame  von  Alfons'  face. 

He  threw  the  volume  down.  It  was  she  who  had 
brought  matters  to  a  point  of  sordid  and  insidious  dis- 
trust. The  difference  between  them,  he  thought,  was 
in  the  fact  that  if  it  had  been  he  who  distrusted  her  his 
distrust  itself  would  have  been  nullified  by  all  the  loyal- 
ties which  would  rise  to  defend  her. 


XI 


ANNE-MARIE  leaned  on  the  wall  which  edged  the 
walk  and  looked  out  at  the  sweep  of  the  river 
below  her. 

Her  motor  had  set  her  down,  ten  minutes  earlier,  at 
a  corner  of  the  wide  driveway,  where  she  had  found 
Arthur  Irish  awaiting  her.  She  had  not  wavered  in  her 
greeting  of  him  or  in  her  acceptance  of  his  unexpressed 
surprise.  She  had  sent  him  the  note,  to  which  his  pres- 
ence here  was  so  kind  a  response,  she  said,  because  there 
was  something  about  which  she  most  particularly  wanted 
to  see  him.  It  was  tiresome  to  drive,  and  what  did  he 
think  of  their  leaving  the  roadway  and  crossing  to  the 
distant  and  more  sequestered  walk?  All  the  more  rea- 
son for  their  doing  so,  she  had  ended  easily,  since  it  was 
such  a  rarely  charming  afternoon,  when  the  winter  light 
was  misty  and  full  of  greys  and  pinks. 

It  was  as  they  paused  beside  the  wall  which  bound 
the  outer  edge  of  the  drive  that  she  had  become  sud- 


110     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

denly  conscious  of  how  little,  in  her  action,  she  had 
taken  into  account  Irish's  personality.  She  knew  that  he 
was  an  example  of  one  of  those  strange  gradations  in 
American  life  which  have  not  yet  reached  the  point  of 
mellow  shadings,  but  which  are  nevertheless  definitely 
to  be  reckoned  with.  The  Irishes  belonged  to  the  small 
class  which  had  for  some  generations  inherited  money. 
They  appeared  to  have  escaped  the  first  difficult  struggle 
for  existence  and  to  have  been  definitely  rich  for  so  long 
that  they  had  been  placed  beyond  the  usual  contacts  and 
the  usual  competition.  If  the  habit  of  acquisition  had 
come  to  be  in  his  blood,  she  saw  that  it  had  educated 
Irish  to  a  civilisation  beyond  his  money.  She  had  at 
first  been  unable  to  couple  this  pale,  near-sighted  young 
man  with  either  the  splendour  of  his  Titians  or  the  more 
delicate  beauty  of  his  Bouchers.  The  treasures  of  his 
collection  argued  that  he  must  be  some  belated  prince  of 
the  Renaissance,  whose  religion  and  whose  moral  was 
beauty.  Yet  it  was  one  of  the  fantastic  accidents  in  the 
development  of  a  young  country  that  his  proved  expert- 
ness  should  appear  as  desultory  and  formless  as  his  care- 
less walk,  his  drooping  shoulders,  and  his  absent  and  in- 
different eyes.  The  power  he  disposed  of  had  taught 
him  appreciations  rather  than  an  inner  glow.  He 
achieved  no  more  of  an  exterior  than  that  of  his  mother, 
a  plain,  faded  little  woman,  who,  dressed  in  the  simplest 
black,  lived  quietly  in  one  of  the  corners  of  their  palace. 
The  constant  training  of  his  taste  to  discard  all  but  the 
best  had  given  him  all  the  intellectual  passions  but  no 
vital  and  personal  experience  of  them;  and  the  princeli- 
ness  which  should  have  been  part  of  such  a  power  as  his 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    111 

had  come  down  to  an  assiduous  pursuit  of  the  long  series 
of  processes  which  mean  culture. 

The  first  sign  which  had  made  her  understand  both 
him  and  the  particular  quality  of  this  culture  had  been 
the  way  in  which  his  eyes,  each  time  they  had  met,  had 
been  arrested  by  points  in  her  which  American  men 
rarely  saw.  It  had  been  a  matter  of  thoughtful  observa- 
tion to  her  that  if  she  were  too  dull  for  most  of  the 
women  she  saw  she  was  too  subtle  for  the  men,  and 
that  she  required  too  elaborate  an  appreciation  for  the 
usual  person  to  trouble  to  waste  time  on  her.  She  had 
at  once  seen  that  she  held  Irish's  attention.  It  was  not 
that  she  knew  about  his  things  and  could  talk  about 
them — every  woman  he  met  could  do  that,  he  told  her 
despairingly,  and  every  school-girl  instructed  him. 
It  was  rather  that  she  herself  took  her  place  as 
something  in  her  way  as  good  as  the  best  of  his 
works  of  art.  He  had  learned  a  fundamental  dependence 
upon  style;  and  style  ran  through  her,  from  the 
rare  arrangement  of  her  beauty  to  her  precise  speech, 
her  carefully  formulated  thoughts  and  her  formulated 
deduction  of  existence,  with  the  smooth  flow  of  a  perfect 
sequence  of  character.  She  could  touch  here  and  elude 
there,  and  all  for  the  purpose  of  making  him  feel  what 
he  most  wanted  to  feel.  It  was  not  the  too  fluid  attitude 
of  most  women,  but  rather  a  deep  habit  of  nature  in  her 
which  had  as  its  single  object  the  desire  to  please  his 
sex.  She  had  made  allowances  in  Irish  for  the  rich 
man's  suspicion  of  women's  predatory  instinct;  and  it 
had  been  part  of  his  response  to  her,  on  the  few  occa- 
sions when  they  met,  that  she  could  see  it  dissolved  by 
her  cool  reserves  and  her  cooler  implications.  It  was 


112     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

not  only  that  she  accepted  with  due  appreciation  the  fact 
of  his  collections  and  his  knowledge.  She  regarded  the 
nourishment  of  such  qualities  of  taste  as  a  business  where 
Irish  himself  had  always  been  vaguely  and  indetermi- 
nately embarrassed  by  them.  He  had  found,  when  they 
talked,  that  she  respected  his  egoism,  his  trained  intoler- 
ances, the  fact  that  he  had  become,  as  she  put  it,  a  citizen 
of  everywhere.  She  had  always  supplemented  the  sug- 
gestion, in  talking  to  him,  with  the  frank  admission  that 
he  had  after  all  achieved  the  beautiful  and  difficult  life 
of  the  artist.  People  who  were  not  as  trained  in  taste  as 
he,  she  had  said,  must  be  broad  enough  to  see  that  even 
what  it  made  him  pay  was  part  of  the  balance  and  com- 
position of  the  whole. 

She  had  rested  on  the  wall  the  hands  from  which  she 
had  drawn  her  gloves,  and  she  continued,  for  a  moment 
or  two,  to  look  pensively  out  at  the  river.  In  her  silence 
she  had  already  become  aware  of  the  fact  that  Irish's 
attention  was  more  closely  fixed  on  her  than  she  had 
ever  felt  it.  She  had  none  the  less  the  impeccable  air  of 
detachment  which  always  characterised  her,  but  she  knew 
that  it  was  warmed  with  mute  suggestions  which,  as  he 
would  be  quick  enough  to  feel,  admitted  him  to  some- 
thing more  intimate.  It  was  characteristic  of  her  that 
in  spite  of  the  clear  purpose  which  penetrated  all  her 
mind  like  a  hard  brilliant  light,  her  sense  of  effect  and 
of  the  ways  in  which  she  could  make  her  influence  valid 
should  yet  persist  and  that  her  critical  faculty  was  clear 
and  alert. 

"Ah,  but  what  a  country !"  she  exclaimed  abruptly.  "A 
scene  like  this — but  it  spreads  all  the  spirituality  of 
America  out  before  one." 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     113 

"Don't  you  know  that  the  spirituality  of  America  is 
very  dull  ?"  Irish  returned  with  a  smile.  It  added  to  his 
latent  sense  of  enjoyment  of  her  that,  for  whatever 
reason  she  had  asked  him  to  meet  her,  she  should  prepare 
the  way  for  their  talk  by  recognising  the  setting  which 
surrounded  them.  "I  must  have  told  you  before  that  if 
I  couldn't  sit  in  my  library  all  day  I  should  go  mad !" 

She  gave  him  the  sympathy  of  a  quick  smile.  "But 
it  is  America  which,  to-morrow,  will  know  everything! 
It  is  tremendous,  this  country ;  it  is  tremendous  to  found 
— do  you  say? — a  nation  on  the  sacred  rights  of  man. 
We  thought  of  it — ah,  yes;  we  have  thought  of  most 
things,  we  French;  but  it  needs  Anglo-Saxons  to  take 
their  ideals  seriously  enough  to  suffer  for  them.  Ah, 
how  you  love  romance,  you  thin,  nervous  people!" 

He  protested,  still  smiling,  that  for  his  part  his  coun- 
trypeople  seemed  matter  of  fact  enough;  but  she  took 
him  up  quickly. 

"But  none  the  less  you  do  not  see  facts.  That  is  the 
reason  you  have  no  form — no  sense  of  definition.  It 
is  like  the  American  humour  of  which  one  hears  so 
much;  it  is  the  humour  of  the  grotesque,  the  extraor- 
dinary, not  the  humour  of  facts.  And  how  clearly  one 
must  see  facts  before  one  can  be  amusing  about  them! 
Ah,  but  how  it  can  make  one  suffer" — her  voice  changed 
suddenly — "your  indirectness,  your  lack  of  definition!" 

"I'm  sure  it's  not  easy,  with  your  traditions,  to  adapt 
yourself  to  bur  loose  ways.  It's  not  always  easy  to  put 
up  with  them  when  one  belongs  here.  For  my  part " 

She  took  him  up  quickly.  "No,  you  for  your  part 
are  safe.  You  have  enough  talent  to  be  unreasonable. 
You  do  not  believe  things  something  they  are  not.  You 


114     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

do  not  pay  the  penalties  of  these  idealists  who  are  con- 
vinced they  are  glorious  but  who  are  in  reality  so  un- 
wise; you  do  not  want — do  you? — to  believe  in  unique 
loves,  in  undying  sentiment,  in  the  coup  de  foudre!" 
Her  face  darkened  to  match  the  change  of  her  tone. 
"You  are  one  of  the  fortunate  people  who  gets  so  much 
of  the  experience  of  life  without  having  to  live  it." 

Irish  looked  at  her  intently.  He  had  noticed  that  it 
was  one  of  her  adroit  ways  to  make  what  she  said 
count  by  succeeding  silences.  The  fact  that  she  now 
turned  away  again  seemed  for  a  moment  nothing  more 
than  her  way  of  giving  him  time  to  see  what  sugges- 
tions her  words  had  implied.  Between  him  and  the 
downward  view  of  the  river  she  was  drawn  in  silhouette 
against  the  pale  afternoon  sky.  He  noted  particularly 
the  outline  of  her  chin,  so  firmly  and  clearly  modelled, 
and  the  tilt  which  the  spirited  carriage  of  her  head  gave 
to  it.  He  had  remarked  before  that  she  held  her  head 
unusually  high  and  a  little  to  one  side,  and  that  it  was 
perhaps  this  trick,  together  with  her  mobile  eyebrows, 
which  gave  her  an  air  of  defiant  surprise  in  the  face  of 
the  ignorances  of  the  world. 

Her  very  remoteness  had  always  seemed  to  him  to 
make  most  of  her  quality;  and  he  was  astonished  to 
see,  as  she  continued  to  stand  with  her  head  raised,  as 
if  she  looked  steadily  at  her  own  thoughts,  that  the 
lace  on  her  dress  rose  and  fell  with  the  hurried  intensity 
of  her  breathing,  and  that  her  lashes  quivered  against  her 
cheek.  All  of  him  sprang  to  attention.  He  leaned 
towards  her,  along  the  wall.  "There's  some  difficulty, 
some  trouble,  which  is  on  your  mind.  That's  why  you 
asked  me  to  come?  Of  course  that's  why!" 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     115 

She  did  not  speak  for  a  moment  more.  Then  she 
turned  to  him,  with  a  frank  simplicity  in  the  disclosure 
of  her  agitation.  The  intactness  of  her  reserve — which, 
in  some  odd  way,  he  felt  to  be  as  perfectly  maintained — 
only  added  to  the  depths  to  which,  as  he  saw,  she  was 
inwardly  shaken. 

"I  may  as  well  admit  it  to  you:  I  am  very  miser- 
able," was  all  she  said;  and  after  a  second  she  added 
briefly:  "It  seems  strange,  I  know,  and  you — I  am 
sorry  for  you  too;  but  you  are  the  only  person  who 
can  act — who  can  in  any  way  help." 

"I !"  he  broke  out.    "But,  my  dear  Mrs.  Gushing " 

She  still  kept  the  grave  penetration  of  her  glance  upon 
him,  with  her  eyes  bright  one  instant  and  suffused  the 
next.  "You  are  to  marry — to  marry  soon,  I  know;  ah, 
no,  don't  ask  me  how  I  know.  Mrs.  Herring  has  told 
many  people  by  now.  But  there  is  something  you  must 
know — something  which,  if  it  ruins  things  for  me,  ruins 
them  also  for  you."  The  indeterminate  emotion  in  her 
face  seemed  to  set  suddenly  in  a  mould  of  resolve.  "I 
have  the  best  reasons  for  believing  that  the  relation 
which  once  existed  between  Mrs.  Herring  and  my  hus- 
band has  lately  recommenced." 

Irish  drew-  back  a  step,  conscious  of  nothing  but  the 
quick  revolt  of  his  pride  and  his  indignation.  His 
thoughts  ran  rapidly  back.  He  felt  the  blood  hotly  in  his 
face  as  his  gaze  returned  to  his  companion;  and  yet, 
in  the  stress  of  his  feeling,  he  was  struck  anew  by  the 
pale  intensity  of  hers,  beneath  her  elaborate  and  care- 
ful form. 

"You  mean  to  say  you  know?  You  mean  to  say 
that  something  which  before  existed " 


116     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"Yes;  it  existed  before  my  marriage,"  she  returned 
clearly. 

"It  existed  before  your  marriage!"  He  wavered, 
in  confusion.  "Of  course  I  know  that  Geraldine's  life 
has  been  so  broken  up — poor  soul!  You  mean  to 
say " 

She  inclined  her  head.  "I  know  enough  to  have  felt 
it  only  right  to  myself  and  to  you  to  warn  you.  If  it 
has  not  recommenced,  it  will  recommence.  You  are 
to  marry  her;  it  is  your  right  to  know.  That  is  why  I 
came  to-day;  that  is  why  I  am  making  to  you — who 
are  almost  a  stranger  to  me" — he  had  never  seen  her 
hold  her  head  higher — "this  humiliating  confession." 

He  struck  the  wall  with  his  hand.  "Then  that's  at 
last  clear!" 

It  was  her  turn  to  face  around,  and  he  saw  that 
the  hardness  in  her  expression  had  broken  and  dis- 
solved again.  "What  is  clear?  Oh,  what?  Don't  you 
see  that  that  is  what  I  most  need — to  be  clear  about  it 
all?  If  you  knew — if  any  one  could  ever  know — what 
it  has  cost  me!"  She  clasped  her  hands.  "And  I  have 
foreseen  it.  I  have  felt  it  coming,  day  after  day.  I 
felt  it,  I  think,  before  my  husband  did.  Yes,  he  has 
gone  back  to  her — thoroughly  back  to  her.  It  has  been 
an  unfaithfulness  which  counted,  an  unfaithfulness  of 
every  feeling.  No,  it  is  too  cruel  that  one  should  have 
to  suffer  like  that !" 

Her  tears  had  overflowed  and  stood  on  her  cheeks. 
Irish  laid  his  hand  impulsively  on  hers.  "I'm  sorry 
for  you.  It's  hard  for  us  both." 

"For  us  both !"  She  shook  her  head.  "No.  It  is 
hard  only  for  me.  You  do  not  know  how  I  have  been 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     117 

humiliated,  how  I  have  watched  things  drifting  out 
of  my  hands.  And  it  was  all  the  harder  because  I  could 
see  it  happening.  If  ever  a  man  was  ready  for  such  a 
thing,  it  was  my  husband.  He  did  not  know  it,  but  he 
was  ready.  He  tried  to  deceive  himself,  but  I  under- 
stood. She  had  a  power — an  old,  tried  power — and  she 
has  used  it.  You — you  must  know  more  about  it  than  I. 

You  are  engaged  to  her — you  have  watched  her " 

She  paused. 

"That's  just  it."  He  met  her  look  fully.  "I'm  not 
engaged  to  her." 

"Not  engaged  to  her!  But  yesterday  you  were;  yes- 
terday— ah,  but  yesterday  a  woman  who  came  to  see 
me  had,  within  the  hour,  had  a  note  from  her  to  tell 
her  so." 

"I'm  giving  you  the  facts."  Irish's  own  confusion 
was  mixed  with  an  obscure  sense  of  pity  for  her.  "Mrs. 
Herring  has  broken  our  engagement." 

"Broken  it!"  She  faltered  and  then  drew  herself 
up.  "Do  you  consider,  Mr.  Irish,  that  I  have  a  right 
to  know  the  reason?" 

"Yes;  you've  as  much  right  as  I  myself — I  see  that." 
He  hesitated.  "Mrs.  Herring  sent  for  me  yesterday — 
it  was  very  late  in  the  afternoon,  and  she  had  suddenly 
decided  to  go  away  last  evening.  She  told  me  frankly 
that  she'd  changed  her  mind,  that  she  didn't  care  for  me 
as  she'd  have  to  care  in  order  to  marry  me."  He  turned 
away  and  added,  more  to  himself  than  to  her:  "She's 
always  been  frank  enough — one's  got  to  grant  her  that." 

"Then  she  must  have  broken  it" — he  could  see  that 
she  pieced  the  evidence  together  as  he  had  pieced  it 
together  a  moment  before — "she  must  have  decided  to 


118    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

break  it  because  of  what  he  said  to  her.  She  must  have 
decided  to  act  because  of  his  influence.  He  was  with 
her — he  was  there  until  half  past  five,  until  six.  And 
when  he  came  in  he  would  tell  me  nothing — nothing." 
The  flash  of  feeling  on  her  face  was  alive  in  its  vivid- 
ness. "Now  do  you  need  reasons — do  you  need  proofs  ?" 

The  look  she  gave  him  and  the  sweeping  gesture  she 
made  conveyed  to  Irish  the  sense  that  everything  was 
said  and  that  she  had  ended.  But  as  she  still  paused 
beside  him,  and  in  spite  of  the  problem  which  was 
presented  by  his  own  situation  and  by  his  pity  for 
her,  the  selective  sense  in  him  was  again  obscurely  aware 
of  how  she  had  made  the  scene  count.  He  had  never 
seen  a  woman  so  completely  surrender  to  her  feeling. 
Even  her  tears  and  the  misery  of  her  face  had  been 
shown  him  with  the  fullest  abandonment.  He  had 
thought,  vaguely  enough,  that  he  knew  what  jealousy 
meant  as  a  fact,  but  he  had  never  seen  it  so  alive  as 
an  emotion  or  suspected  that  it  was  capable  of  causing 
such  intimate  pain.  The  contrast  between  the  formality 
of  her  compact  elegance  and  such  a  frank  exhibition 
of  herself  might  once,  he  recognised,  have  seemed  to 
him  too  strained.  But  as  he  probed  the  expression  with 
which  she  faced  him,  with  her  eyes  wide,  her  lips  just 
parted,  and  her  hands  raised,  with  the  outspread  fingers 
caught  in  the  long  chain  around  her  neck,  he  felt  that 
for  the  first  time  he  understood  the  perfect  sincerity 
of  her  and  the  sincerity  and  beauty  of  the  way  in  which 
her  outer  and  her  inner  self  corresponded. 

He  looked  away,  down  the  river,  to  where  a  gigantic 
line  of  uneven  chimneys,  done  in  dull  greys  and 
smeared  with  the  softness  of  sunset,  was  drawn  across 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     119 

the  sky.  The  hills  opposite,  the  shipping  below  them, 
the  piers  and  factories,  received  a  mellowing  glow  from 
the  long  column  of  red  light  which  rested  on  the  water. 
She  had  stirred  in  him  the  sense  of  drama  in  his  own 
case.  He  felt  all  his  imagination  stimulated,  and  what 
had  always  seemed  to  him  a  hard,  unyielding  world 
dissolved  for  a  moment  and  disclosed  the  infinitely  fine 
parts  of  the  human  machinery  which  composed  it. 


XII 


SHE  had  reached  home  only  just  in  time  to  hurry 
to  her  room  for  a  few  moments  before  dining; 
and  when  she  next  confronted  Gushing  it  was  across 
the  dinner  table. 

She  could  see,  underneath  his  effort  at  consideration 
— the  effort  she  had  felt  him  to  be  ceaselessly  making, 
since  the  night  before — that  he  was  drawing  his  usual 
dry  conclusion  that  she  was  infallible  in  her  judgment 
of  what  would  most  annoy  him.  Instead  of  one  of  her 
usual  dinner  dresses  she  had  put  on  a  dress  of  smoke- 
coloured  grey,  which  reached  up  to  her  throat  and  down 
to  her  wrists,  and  whose  very  simplicity  was  an  affecta- 
tion. Around  her  shoulders  she  had  wound  what  ap- 
peared to  be  a  mist  of  grey  tulle,  held  by  a  flower  which 
matched  her  pallor,  and  to  offset  this  she  had  rouged 
her  lips  the  vividest  red. 

Gushing  constantly  thought,  when  she  presented  such 
an  appearance,  that  he  could  plainly  see  the  man  of 
the  boulevards  who  would  most  appropriately  match 
her,  and  to-night  he  spared  a  brief  smile  to  the  reflec- 


120     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

tion  of  his  own  incongruity,  which  he  caught  in  an 
opposite  mirror.  He  had  been  too  persistently  con- 
scious of  strain,  in  the  last  few  hours,  to  be  able  to  do 
more  than  to  try  to  keep  up,  across  the  shining  crystal 
and  silver  which  separated  them,  an  exchange  of  the 
most  guarded  courtesy.  Yet  as  their  dinner  progressed 
it  had  struck  him  that  there  was  some  disregard  of  ap- 
pearances in  her  which  he  had  never  yet  seen.  It 
showed  in  the  shortness  of  her  replies  and  in  the  fixity 
of  her  gaze,  which  looked  indifferently  beyond  him  and 
through  him.  He  had  long  since  become  accustomed 
to  the  fact  that  her  alert  face  remained  incurious  as  to 
his  inner  feelings.  But  there  now  lay  in  her  eyes  a 
black  shadow  which  he  could  not  explain  by  her  usual 
suggestion  of  dramatic  intensity:  a  suggestion  which  he 
had  insensibly  come  to  discount,  since  it  was  so  in- 
variably well  done  and  so  invariably  without  founda- 
tion. 

It  was  perhaps  his  sense  of  strain  which  made  him 
keenly  aware  that  the  familiarity  of  the  sombre  room 
was  like  a  friendly  and  unspoken  reassurance.  As  he 
fell  back  in  his  chair  and  looked  around,  during  one 
of  their  long  pauses,  he  remembered  that  for  this  too 
she  had  had  her  quick  comment.  It  had  been  one  night, 
a  few  weeks  ago,  when  he  had  dropped  back  in  the 
same  way  and  glanced  about  him  with  the  same  un- 
conscious dependence,  that  she  had  tartly  said:  "Ah, 
Paul,  I  see  what  you  are  saying  to  yourself !  You  are 
saying:  'She  enrages  me,  but  my  comfort  is  that  after 
all  I  am  right.  All  this  is  mine,  and  it  too  is  right — 
the  butler,  the  footman,  the  inherited  silver,  the  heads 
of  the  animals  I  have  killed.  This  is  the  standard,  and 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     121 

she  is  merely  the  person  who  has  failed  to  agree  with 
it.'  I  tell  you  that  when  you  American  men  do  not 
worship  women  you  bully  them.  It  is  a  vast  harem 
of  the  west." 

He  had  been  amused,  as  he  always  was,  at  the  amaz- 
ing justice  with  which  her  light  strokes  fell.  Yet  as  he 
watched  her  now  he  had  never  more  sharply  felt  the 
danger  of  her  astute  formulas — of  the  way  she  could 
create  or  dissolve  a  determinate  condition  by  the  apt- 
ness of  her  power  of  expression.  Her  superficial  agility 
had  made  him  distrust  her  quick  definitions  as  one  of 
the  chief  causes  of  difficulty  between  them,  as  if  she 
could  place  and  accentuate  their  slightest  differences  by 
the  turn  of  a  phrase. 

She  preceded  him  without  a  word,  when  they  left  the 
room,  and  walked  up  the  stairs  to  his  library.  He  saw 
that  she  gave  her  usual  quick  glance  to  see  that  the  coffee 
tray  was  beside  the  fire  and  that  the  servants  had  left; 
then  she  closed  the  door  and,  standing  with  her  back 
to  it,  she  turned  on  him  the  pale  animation  of  her  look. 

"There  is  no  need  for  any  preliminary,"  she  said 
clearly;  "I  want  to  tell  you  that  I  know." 

Gushing  paused  and  pushed  away  the  box  of  cigars 
over  which,  on  the  large  centre  table,  he  had  bent.  He 
confronted  her  gravely  but  he  did  not  speak. 

"I  know,"  she  continued,  with  the  clarity  of  her  voice 
as  strained  but  as  definite,  "that  what  I  suspected  yester- 
day is  a  fact." 

Gushing  still  maintained  his  silence.  He  could  not 
have  defined  it,  but  what  she  said  seemed  to  matter  less, 
in  some  inexplicable  way,  than  her  vast  appeal  to  his 
sympathy — than  the  fact  that  his  wife,  to  whom  he 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

had  promised  so  much,  should  by  any  of  the  blunders 
and  inconsequences  of  life  have  been  brought  to  this 
point  of  unhappiness.  He  took  an  abrupt  step  forward 
and  paused. 

"My  dear,  it's  not  been  fair  of  me  to  let  things  hurt 
you  like  that.  But  you,  too,  you're  unfair." 

"Unfair?  I  am  wretched,"  she  made  one  of  her  ex- 
travagant gestures,  "if  that  is  being  unfair." 

"But  you've  not  trusted  me." 

"Trusted  you !"  Her  eyes  flew  up  to  his.  "Does  one 
trust  a  man  about  whom  one  has  proof?" 

"I  should  have  trusted  you  against  proof,"  he  broke 
out,  but  she  took  him  up  quickly. 

"Ah,  I  have  finished  with  them,  those  vague  ideas 
of  honour.  You  went  to  Geraldine  Herring,  you  made 
her  break  her  engagement.  Why?  I,  for  my  part,  am 
not  so  blind  that  I  do  not  see,  and  to-night  I  shall  leave 
you."  The  vivid  fixity  of  her  look  held  for  a  moment 
longer;  then  she  covered  her  face  with  her  hands  and 
murmured  brokenly:  "But  how  hideous  it  all  is — how 
hideous,  how  hideous!" 

Cushing's  expression  had  crystallised  to  a  hardness 
to  equal  hers. 

"Yes,  and  it's  you  alone  who've  made  it  so — you  who 
have  put  on  us  both  these  miseries  and  humiliations. 
That  you  could  so  distort,  that  you  could  torture  and 
twist — it's  incredible!  No,  it's  not  incredible.  It's  the 
habit  of  mind  in  you,  the  instinct  to  search  out  such 

complications '  He  interrupted  himself.  "But  how 

did  you  search  them  out?" 

She  was  silent  for  a  second.  He  watched  the  hands 
she  had  dropped  from  before  her  face — he  had  learned 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     123 

that  with  old  races  the  hands  are  full  of  betrayal — and 
he  saw  that  they  hesitated  in  their  motions.  "It  is  of 
very  little  consequence  to  you  how  I  know.  I  do  know," 
she  repeated.  "But  whatever  happens  I  have  spoilt  her 
chance.  Ah,  what  a  debt  I  owe  her!  How  she  has 
pretended  that  she  had  no  further  interest  in  you — how 
she  has  used  her  friendship  with  Edith!  Poor  Edith — 
who  thinks  because  she  knows  what  has  existed  be- 
tween you  that  she  at  the  same  time  knows  everything 
else  about  such  a  woman !  She  has  hidden  behind 
her  frankness,  her  indifference,  the  fact  that  she  rarely 
saw  you.  But  I  have  paid  her  something  back,  at  last. 
I  have  prevented  her  marriage,  and  it  is  not  possible  she 
will  ever  have  a  chance  like  it  again.  Arthur  Irish 
knows  about  her  now." 

"Knows?  What  do  you  mean?"  He  had  taken  an- 
other step  nearer  to  her.  "What  does  Irish  know?" 

"Everything!"  She  flung  the  word  at  him.  "Every- 
thing there  is  to  know — what  happened  before,  what 
Mimi  told  me,  long  ago,  in  Paris,  and  what  is  happen- 
ing now.  He  knows  that  he  has  you  to  thank  for  los- 
ing her.  I  have  seen  him  this  afternoon  and  I  have  told 
him." 

She  ended  with  a  last  flash  of  defiance  and  waited. 
She  had  never  seen  Cushing's  face  so  crossed  and  re- 
crossed  as  it  was  by  conflicting  feelings.  At  the  back  of 
her  thoughts  there  was  the  strange  sense  that  they  were 
inspired  not  by  the  fact  which  concerned  Mrs.  Herring 
and  Irish,  but  by  what  she  herself  had  done. 

"It's  not  possible,"  he  said,  in  a  low  tone.  "It's  not 
possible  that  you  should  have  done  nothing  more  or 
less  than  dishonour  yourself." 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"Dishonour  myself?"    Her  voice  shook  and  then  rose. 

"Yes.  Dishonour  yourself.  You've  employed  weapons 
decent  people  don't  admit." 

Anne-Marie's  eyes  had  fastened  on  his  extended  hand, 
and  she  saw  that  as  he  paused  again  he  had  clenched 
it  as  tightly  as  if  his  impulses  of  anger  had  reached  a 
point  beyond  actual  control.  The  sense  of  such  scenes 
was  natural  enough  to  her  to  make  her  aware  of  a  faint 
physical  fear.  Yet  it  baffled  her  as  she  had  never  be- 
fore been  baffled  that  she  could  not  foresee  Cushing's 
feeling  at  such  an  important  moment — that  his  instinctive 
disgust  would  probably  express  itself  in  a  contemptuous- 
ness  which  was  beyond  violence. 

The  longer  Gushing  paused  the  more  her  uncertainty 
mounted.  He  finally  turned  away,  with  a  brief  gesture, 
as  if  he  had  reached  a  conclusion  from  which  there 
was  no  appeal.  "There's  nothing  more  to  say.  If  you've 
been  capable  of  that,"  his  tone  was  still  low,  "you're 
capable  of  anything." 

"I  am  capable  of  anything!  A  woman  who  has  been 
so  humiliated  and  debased  is  capable  of  anything.  No, 
I  tell  you  she  will  not  so  easily  rebuild  her  life — at  least 
not  with  Arthur  Irish;  and  if  she  tries  to  rebuild  it 
with  you " 

Gushing  turned  back,  with  his  hand  again  raised. 
"Anne-Marie,  you  don't  know  what  you're  saying. 
You've  said,  heaven  knows,  enough." 

"And  you?    Do  you  owe  it  to  me  to  say  nothing?" 

"Nothing."  The  tension  of  his  look  made  her  turn 
paler.  "You've  lost  the  claim  to  my  consideration.  If 
your  decency  can't  tell  you 

"And  why?"     She  had  moved  forward  too,  so  that 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    125 

now  they  stood  close  to  each  other.  "Why  should  you 
interfere  with  her  marriage  ?  Why  should  you  want  her 
not  to  marry?  Why  should  she  accept  your  interfer- 
ence ?  Tell  me  that !  Is  it  a  lie,  then  ?  Am  I  wrong  ?" 

"Doesn't  every  inch  of  you  tell  you  that  you're 
wrong?  It's  I  who  am  wrong — who  from  the  first  have 
been  wrong — to  believe  you  capable  of  anything  better 
than  this.  It's  not  your  accusation — it's  mine." 

"Then  what  was  the  reason  for  her  accepting  your 
interference?  You  did  interfere — you  must  have.  And 
why  should  you  defend  what  she  said  as  a  confidence 
— a  confidence  which  you  saw  I  misunderstood?  There 
could  have  been  only  one  reason,  granted  your  strange 
notion  of  what  is  just  and  unjust — there  could  have  been 
only  one  reason  for  your  protecting  what  she  said  as 
you  have  protected  it."  She  paused.  "No,  but  I  see  it! 
It  is  that  between  you  and  her  there  is  something — some- 
thing which  exists  now,  something  which  is  at  all  costs  to 
be  spared." 

Cushing's  expression  had  now  hardened  to  a  point 
beyond  admission  or  negation.  "There  is.  Something 

which  not  even  suspicions  like  yours  can  ruin " 

He  broke  off  and  waited  for  a  moment. 

"I  am  going — I  am  going  now,"  she  said  quickly.  "I 
suppose  you  understand  that."  She  struggled  with  her 
rising  sobs.  "Do  you  think  I  can  spend  another  night 
under  your  roof?  Ah,  but  I  should  hope  not!  I  shall 
get  my  things  together,  and  you  can  send  them  after 
me.  I  shall  leave  you  everything  you  have  given  me — 
my  pearls,  my  rings,  everything.  If  you  have  no  decency 
you  can  give  them  to  Mrs.  Herring." 

She   moved   towards   the   door.     Cushing's   eyes   in- 


126     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

evitably  turned  and  followed  her.  As  she  stood,  with 
her  head  lifted,  in  the  clear  light,  something  in  her  struck 
him  with  the  intensity  of  a  revelation.  He  had  sup- 
posed that  he  had  just  had  the  final  and  degrading  proof 
that  her  powers  of  feeling,  apart  from  their  prescribed 
manifestation,  were  transient  and  merely  instinctive.  The 
havoc  of  her  face  gave  a  sudden  width  to  them.  He 
guessed  it  had  been  his  last,  and  perhaps  his  worst,  mis- 
adventure that  he  had  not  realised  in  time,  and  before  she 
had  had  her  chance  to  drag  everything  to  such  an  abase- 
ment, that  it  was  not  only  an  instinct  but  all  her  instincts 
which  were  merged  in  the  sweep  of  so  irresistible  an  emo- 
tion. His  thoughts  flashed  back  to  their  talk  in  the 
Norman  orchard,  when  her  questions  to  him  had  seemed 
only  one  of  her  simulations  of  form  and  as  far  as  pos- 
sible from  the  warm  spontaneity  of  jealousy.  The  depth 
and  the  quality  of  her  capacity  was  for  the  first  time 
manifest  to  him  as  they  were  about  to  part:  the  constant 
irony  of  their  attempt  at  understanding  revealed  the  fact 
with  a  hard  precision. 

She  moved  suddenly,  and  with  a  wide  gesture  she 
drew  off  her  wedding  ring  and  held  it  out  to  him.  For 
a  second  Gushing  felt  himself  intimately  stirred;  but  as 
he  continued  to  hesitate  she  flung  the  ring  across  the 
room  to  his  feet,  and  in  an  instant  the  significance  of 
her  act  had  been  lost  in  her  invariable  suggestion  of 
theatricality. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    127 


XIII 

ONE  afternoon  at  the  end  of  the  same  week,  Anne- 
Marie  sat  by  the  window  of  her  little  sitting 
room,  in  one  of  the  quieter  hotels,  and  watched  the  events 
of  the  past  days  crystallise  into  the  hard  outlines  of 
reality. 

Since  the  night  of  her  arrival  it  seemed  to  her  that 
her  thoughts  had  moved  to  and  fro  in  vacuity.  Her 
mind  resembled  nothing  so  much  as  the  blankness  of 
Cushing's  closed  door,  which,  as  she  had  descended  the 
stairs,  had  appeared  the  final  expression  of  his  parting 
with  her.  It  was  true  that  for  some  hours  afterward 
she  had  been  deeply  shaken,  with  her  imagination  in 
the  flame-like  state  which  distorts  the  past  and  illumi- 
nates the  present  into  new  values.  The  fact  of  her 
assured  immunity  from  any  present  contact  with  Gush- 
ing and  their  problem  was  at  first  all  her  thoughts 
could  grasp.  She  had  been  immensely  tired,  and  as 
soon  as  she  had  unpacked  she  had  gone  to  bed,  hoping 
that  her  sleep  would  prolong  itself  far  into  the  next  day. 
But  she  woke  at  dawn;  and  in  the  grey  light  the  fire- 
less  bedroom  took  from  her  circumstances  their  last 
vestige  of  uncertainty. 

The  truth  was,  she  began  to  see,  as  her  eyes  grew 
more  accustomed  to  the  inner  perspectives,  that  she 
had  acted  on  the  authority  of  a  custom  strange  to  her. 
In  her  own  code,  what  had  happened  was  no  adequate 
reason  for  her  being  alone,  living  at  an  hotel,  with 
every  freedom  suddenly  granted  her.  Cushing's  tacit 
refusal  to  interfere  with  the  execution  of  her  decision 


128     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

was  as  unaccountable  to  her  as  the  fact  that,  because 
of  one  acute  circumstance,  she  could  have  brought  about 
the  rupture  of  their  marriage.  The  independence  which 
her  husband's  idea  of  honour  granted  to  the  woman 
who  considers  herself  wronged  seemed  alien  and  arti- 
ficial to  her.  The  fact  that  there  was  no  tradition  in  her 
present  surroundings  to  hold  her  back  had  made  it 
possible  for  her  to  subdue  her  native  scruples  and  to 
leave  him.  The  laxity  of  the  American  laws  of  con- 
duct already  made  the  fact  that  she  broke  them  lose 
half  its  affront.  She  realised  now  how  completely 
she  had  viewed  her  marriage  as  an  exception  and  out- 
side the  exactions  and  regulations  to  which  she  was 
accustomed.  The  localism  of  her  own  view  had  always 
continued,  in  a  half-acknowledged  way,  to  regard  it  as 
impossible.  If  she  had  married  in  France,  she  knew 
how  long  she  must  have  wavered  between  the  rights 
and  wrongs  of  her  release,  and  that  if  it  had  forced 
itself  upon  her  it  would  not  only  have  come  grad- 
ually, with  the  insistence  of  a  demand  which  could  no 
longer  be  suppressed,  but  also  according  to  set  rules 
of  acceptance  and  discrimination. 

Yet  as  the  days  had  worn  themselves  on  and  as  she 
tried  to  collect  herself — over  her  meals,  in  the  close 
dark  dining  room  or  sitting  beside  the  window,  where, 
through  fold  after  fold  of  greyish  lace,  she  could 
look  out  at  the  corrugated  sea  of  roofs  below  her — she 
realised  how  intimately  the  past  two  years  had  influ- 
enced her.  The  comparative  exiguity  of  her  quarters 
had  begun  to  draw  together,  into  precise  boundaries,  her 
vague  vision  of  her  future.  It  had  been  when  she  strug- 
gled with  the  problem  of  these  adjustments  that  she  first 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     129 

understood  that  she  had  been  insensibly  affected  by  the 
habit  of  luxury.  For  the  first  time  since  her  marriage, 
she  thought  ironically,  she  would  have  an  outlet  for 
her  shrewd  capacity  to  manage.  The  details  of  her  in- 
stallation— the  contrast  between  the  furniture  whose 
ornateness  could  not  disguise  the  signs  of  transient 
use,  with  the  elaborate  articles  she  had  disposed  around 
her — pressed  her  with  the  hard,  inelastic  value  of 
money.  She  knew  that  in  this  complex  civilisation 
the  luxuries  she  most  prized,  those  of  privacy  and  sim- 
plicity, must  be  bought.  Already  she  felt  an  intense  dis- 
taste for  the  equivocal  impressions  her  presence  here 
must  produce  and  for  the  curiosity  of  furtive  glances. 
Gushing  had  sent  his  secretary  to  her  the  day  after 
her  arrival,  merely  with  instructions  to  ask  for  her 
instructions.  The  half  hour  she  spent  with  him  remained 
one  of  the  most  intimately  disagreeable  she  had  ever 
passed.  The  manifestation  of  her  husband's  generosity 
in  the  matter  of  the  income  he  offered  her  only  added 
to  her  incomprehension.  She  was  aware  of  her  in- 
stinctive revolt  against  anything  approaching  the  usual 
conditions  in  such  cases.  She  knew  that  her  own  coun- 
trywomen had  at  times  to  make  such  compacts  and  that 
her  reluctance  was  probably  extravagant  and  unreason- 
able. But  her  keenest  sense  was  that  she  could  never 
foretell  Cushing's  reserves  of  opinion,  and  the  thought 
that  he  could  believe  her  capable  of  the  easy  acceptance 
of  divorce  and  of  all  its  vulgar  necessities,  as  they  ex- 
isted in  his  own  race,  was  intolerable  to  her  pride.  She 
had  therefore  sent  him,  by  his  messenger,  the  briefest 
kind  of  note.  Her  cousin,  Madame  von  Alfons,  was 
to  be  in  New  York  before  long,  she  wrote,  and  she 


130     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

would  consult  with  her  about  the  steps  she  would  take 
to  dissolve  their  marriage.  Meanwhile  it  was  her  in- 
tention to  live  on  her  own  diminutive  income. 

She  was  conscious  that  something  of  the  force  of 
her  abasement  had  found  its  way  into  her  letter.  Gush- 
ing had  always  put  aside  her  easy  verbal  interpretations 
of  what  she  felt  as  florid  and  specious;  and  when  she 
wrote :  "to  be  under  any  further  obligation  to  you  would 
be  a  form  of  intimate  suffering  for  which  I  do  not  now 
possess  the  courage,"  she  knew  that  at  last  one  of  her 
statements  would  convince  him.  The  even  more  marked 
briefness  of  his  answer  proved  this  to  her.  He  had 
not  the  privilege  of  forcing  any  of  his  wishes  on  her,  he 
replied,  though  he  believed  and  would  continue  to  believe 
that  he  owed  her  everything. 

She  was  obscurely  grateful  for  the  forms  his  con- 
sideration took  and  for  this  imaginative  quality  in  him. 
Yet  it  was  the  cause  of  her  worst  difficulty.  The  fact 
that  Gushing  could  so  enlarge  existing  facts — that  he 
had  regarded  unfaithfulness  not  only  as  unfaithfulness 
to  the  letter  but  to  the  spirit  of  a  compact — widened  the 
extent  of  his  offence.  Her  inborn  recognition  of  the 
tenacious  influence  of  human  relationships  had  helped 
the  progress  of  her  pain.  She  could  conjure  up  the 
smallest  of  the  circumstances  which  had  held  him  and 
Mrs.  Herring  together,  with  an  elaborate  exactness 
which  came  from  her  inheritance  and  her  training.  It 
was  difficult  for  her  to  face  the  conclusions  of  so  deep 
a  personal  resentment;  and  her  worst  suffering,  as  she 
had  sadly  granted,  had  been  in  a  way  which  her  husband 
could  least  of  all  have  understood. 

His   insensibility   was   the   most   penetrative   and    in- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    131 

sidious  of  the  wounds  he  had  dealt  her.  The  best 
American  standards  had  proved  to  her  that  a  man  could 
not  easily  and  honestly  divide  his  allegiance,  and  the 
failure  of  her  marriage  had  consequently  weakened  her 
faith  in  herself  and  in  her  own  powers.  She  had  even 
the  obscure  sense  that  she  herself  was  to  blame  for 
the  fact  that  Gushing  had  seen  all  her  qualities  of  en- 
chantment without  enough  appreciation  to  overcome  his 
own  prejudices.  She  knew  that,  whatever  he  believed 
concerning  her  own  actions,  it  would  be  instinctive  with 
him  to  search  his  conduct  through  and  through  for  points 
in  their  relation  where  he  had  failed.  It  was  her  coun- 
terpart to  this,  she  supposed,  that  she  reproached  her- 
self for  not  having  better  employed  the  methods  in 
which  she  had  most  faith.  However  she  sifted  the  mat- 
ter and  however  she  tried  to  test  all  the  falsities  of  its 
adjustments,  she  was  sardonically  aware  that  she  in- 
variably ended  with  the  conclusion  that  if  she  had  some- 
how managed  to  be  more  charming  Mrs.  Herring's  influ- 
ence would  have  been  ineffectual.  The  admission  of 
such  a  failure  contracted  all  her  future  to  the  immanent 
realities  in  the  depressing  rooms,  in  which  the  light  of 
the  pale  winter  days  struck  no  answering  reflections. 

Mrs.  Sale  had  come  to  her  immediately  after  her  ar- 
rival and  had  been  exceedingly  kind,  though  Anne- 
Marie's  wit  reminded  her  that  kindness  so  definitely 
pursued  had  a  disturbing  suggestion  of  relentlessness. 
She  had  instantly  dreaded  that  Edith  might  try  to  make 
her  reconsider  her  decision,  and  she  knew  that  her 
sister-in-law's  power  would  be  in  the  direct  force  of  her 
goodness  and  of  her  sincerity.  "Paul's  told  me  noth- 


132     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

ing — absolutely  nothing;  and  above  all  you  must  un- 
derstand that  I  don't  come  with  any  plea.  He  wouldn't 
let  me  come,  indeed,  unless  I  promised  in  no  way  to 
try  to  coerce  you.  I  know  only  that  you  left  him  because 
you  were  gravely  unhappy.  That,"  Mrs.  Sale  had  put 
it  plainly,  "was  exactly  what  he  asked  me  to  say.  He 
feels  that,  whatever  turn  things  have  taken,  it's  his 
fault  that  you  weren't  happy  enough.  He  says  he  was 
wrong  to  let  you  reach  the  point  where  you  made  such 
mistakes.  If  you'll  believe  me,  I  think  it's  the  fact  of 
his  own  failure  which  is  hardest  for  him ;  that,  and  your 
unhappiness." 

Anne-Marie  had  met  this  with  a  long  stare  of  sur- 
prise. She  understood  Edith  well  enough  to  see  how 
hard  it  must  be  for  her,  even  with  the  protection  of  her 
ignorance,  to  show  such  generosity  where  her  brother's 
wife  was  concerned.  She  had  long  since  divined  that 
it  was  peculiarly  difficult  for  Mrs.  Sale  to  deal  with  a 
person  of  whose  powers  of  appreciation  she  was  un- 
certain. She  knew  that  she  particularly  tried  Edith's 
patience — less  by  her  ignorance  of  all  the  usual  woman's 
interests  and  attitudes  than  by  her  disconcerting  flashes 
of  astuteness.  But  whatever  Mrs.  Sale  guessed  or 
ignored  of  the  situation,  Anne-Marie  recognised  at  once 
the  impossibility  of  correcting  her  suppositions.  The 
revelations  she  had  made  to  Arthur  Irish  had  excused 
themselves  to  her  as  an  inevitable  part  of  her  jealousy; 
where  Mrs.  Sale  was  concerned,  she  was  restrained  not 
only  by  her  meticulous  sense  of  propriety  but  by  her 
recognition  of  Edith's  kindness,  and  she  determined  to 
say  nothing. 

She  hesitated   for  a  moment.     The  only   reasonable 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    133 

deduction  she  could  make,  as  her  mind  passed  rapidly 
from  premise  to  premise,  was  that  Gushing  would  nat- 
urally continue  to  occupy  a  position  where  he  could 
stand  between  Mrs.  Herring  and  any  disclosure. 

"But  you — naturally  you  take  his  part.  Even  against 
the  facts,  when  you  know  them,  you  will  think  me  to 
blame.  Of  course  Paul  will  not  directly  admit  it,  but 
he  asked  you  to  see  me  because  he  hoped  you  would 
somehow  persuade  me  to  reconsider  a  decision  which 
would  save  every  one  a  scandal.  Is  that  it?" 

"No,  that's  not  it."  Mrs.  Sale's  usual  decisiveness 
of  manner  softened.  "My  poor  child,  you've  been 
through  enough,  I'm  sure,  to  make  you  doubt  us.  Paul 
insists  that  you  have  a  right  to  make  in  every  way  your 
own  decisions.  I  don't  pretend  to  you  that  he  says 
you're  right.  He  says  you're  deeply  and  fundamentally 
wrong — you  know  best  why." 

Anne-Marie  had  hesitated  again,  in  the  stress  of  her 
conflicting  impulses.  "But  it  is  too  extraordinary!  He 
denied  and  denied  to  me  what  I  accused  him  of.  Yet 
because  of  his  idea  that  he  was  somehow  to  blame  in 
permitting  me  to  be  so  unhappy,  he  is  content  to  ac- 
knowledge himself  partly  in  the  wrong.  And  did  he 
tell  you  why?"  She  had  felt  her  face  harden.  "Did  he 
tell  you  why  he  was  telling  you,  as  you  say,  absolutely 
nothing?" 

Edith  returned  her  look  steadily.  "Yes,  he  did.  He 
said  it  was  scarcely  fair  to  you — considering  the  form 
your  suspicions  had  taken — to  tell  even  me  of  them." 
She  watched  the  blood  flame  quickly  up  in  Anne-Marie's 
cheeks,  and  then  she  laid  her  hand  on  her  arm.  "I  don't 
want  to  be  wrong  and  unkind — haven't  I  shown  you 


134     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

that?  I've  been  through  these  things  myself,  my  dear. 
You  mustn't  lose  courage;  you  must  remember  that 
there  is  always  so  much  to  live  for." 

Anne-Marie,  who  was  now  pale  again,  watched  her 
gravely.  "So  much  to  live  for ?  But  is  there?" 

"Ah,  there's  everything!  You'll  see;  you  and  Paul 
are  still  young,  and  time  does  such  wonders." 

"Yes,  you  believe  in  time,  I  know.  I  am  not  sure 
that  I  do.  Time  changes  situations  of  course,  but  it 
scarcely  changes  character.  And  are  lives  really  re- 
made? Somehow  one  doubts  it " 

She  broke  off,  with  a  sense  of  the  hopelessness  of  any 
comparison  between  herself  and  Edith.  Mrs.  Sale, 
whatever  her  own  experiences,  had  not  the  instinct  but 
only  the  theory  of  such  a  problem.  The  refinements  of 
the  difficulty,  which  kept  Anne-Marie  sensitive  to  the 
least  implication  against  her  own  dignity,  were  non- 
existent in  the  light  of  such  a  clear,  open  view.  She  re- 
membered the  extraordinary  ease  with  which  her  sister- 
in-law  alluded  to  Sale  and  her  relegation  of  him  to  one 
of  the  numerous  causes  which  so  occupied  her.  Edith 
probably  felt  a  definite  advantage  over  her,  for  the  first 
time  in  their  relationship.  She  had  weakened  herself 
by  her  failure  with  Gushing.  Mrs.  Sale  was  after  all 
at  home  in  a  situation  in  which  Anne-Marie  was  strange ; 
she  managed  it  competently  because  she  did  not  un- 
derstand it.  With  a  faint  flare  of  amusement,  Anne- 
Marie  realised  that  Edith  was  protected  by  the  indelicacy 
of  her  ignorance  as  she  herself  would  never  be  pro- 
tected. 

She  had  looked  away  from  Edith  and  her  eyes  had 
travelled  around  her  sitting  room  and  its  gilt  decora- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    135 

tions,  with  a  sudden  distaste.  For  the  first  time  it 
seemed  to  her  to  give  an  impression  less  of  ugliness 
than  of  the  specious  and  equivocal.  Her  thoughts 
turned  to  Mrs.  Sale's  drawing  room.  She  had  always 
felt  that  its  vaguely  restless  air  had  been  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  tapestries,  the  embroideries,  the  good 
faience  and  the  admirable  Italian  carvings  must  be  in- 
dubitably surprised  to  find  themselves  in  a  New  York 
apartment  house.  Now  she  dreaded  the  suggestion,  as  if 
it  reminded  her  of  one  of  the  penalties  of  a  rootless  and 
disintegrated  life.  She  would  soon  be  like  Edith,  and 
it  would  soon  be  outwardly  apparent,  she  supposed,  that 
nothing  was  left  her  but  forced  interest.  Her  maid 
was  lingering  at  the  door,  waiting  to  show  Mrs.  Sale 
out.  She  had  only  lately  engaged  the  woman,  less  for 
the  respectability  of  her  appearance  than  for  the  pleasure 
of  being  able  to  speak  French  to  her.  It  struck  her  now 
that  Gushing  had  said  that  she  was  the  kind  of  maid 
possible  only  on  the  stage,  and  that  as  one  examined 
her  more  critically  her  aprons  had  too  many  frills  and 
her  eyes  were  both  inept  and  sly.  As  she  turned  back 
to  Edith,  to  wish  her  good-bye,  she  understood  that  the 
hardest  penalty  of  her  position  was  the  loss  of  her 
former  confident  sense  of  an  unapproachable  distinc- 
tion. 

XIV 

SHE  had  reached  this  point  in  her  reflections  and 
had  turned  from  the  window  and  thrown  herself 
listlessly   into   a   chair,   before   the   incandescent  bluish 


136     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

glow  of  the  gas  fire,  when  the  sharp  ring  of  the  telephone 
bell  in  the  hall  brought  her  suddenly  to  her  feet. 

Since  her  arrival  at  the  hotel  she  had  seen  no  one  ex- 
cept Mrs.  Sale  and  one  or  two  necessary  messengers; 
and  even  before  her  maid,  who  had  answered  the  call, 
turned  to  her  with  the  information  that  a  lady  asked  to 
speak  to  her  before  she  ventured  to  be  shown  up,  Anne- 
Marie  felt  the  rise  of  her  perturbation.  She  went  to  the 
instrument  and  held  it  to  her  ear,  with  a  sudden  quiver 
of  her  heart.  The  voice  she  heard,  hurriedly  speaking, 
seemed  to  convey  to  her  little  beyond  the  press  of  her 
own  agitation.  She  heard  herself  say :  "Yes — I  will  see 
you.  I  understand — it  is  Mrs.  Herring.  Yes,  if  you 
wish  it  I  will  see  you,"  and  she  turned  back  again  into 
the  sitting  room  with  the  same  strange  lack  of  belief 
in  the  reality  of  anything  except  the  unreasoning  pang 
of  her  suffering. 

She  had  paused  in  the  centre  of  the  room,  aware  that 
she  had  never  before  made  so  vital  an  effort  to  con- 
trol herself.  If  she  could  maintain  the  carriage  of  her 
head,  the  steadiness  of  her  eyes  and  the  rigidity  of  her 
clasped  hands,  it  seemed  to  her  that  these  would  be 
the  outward  and  symbolic  signs  of  her  grasp  of  the 
situation.  There  was  a  mirror  on  the  opposite  wall, 
and  as  her  reflection  flashed  out  at  her  she  felt  that 
she  saw  scarcely  herself,  but,  in  the  dark  upright  figure, 
the  actual  embodiment  of  the  feeling  which  possessed 
her. 

The  doors  of  the  lift  in  the  hall  opened  and  closed,  and 
a  moment  later  Mrs.  Herring  came  in  from  the  cor- 
ridor. She  turned  to  shut  the  door  behind  her  and  then 
advanced  to  where  Anne-Marie  stood. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     137 

"I  had  to  see  you;  I  suppose  you  understood  that. 
I'm  just  back — just  half  an  hour  since,  from  the  sta- 
tion. I  went  straight  to  Edith  and  tried  to  talk  to  her. 
Of  course  I've  heard,  since  I've  been  gone,  that  some- 
thing was  wrong  beween  you  and  Paul.  But  while 
Edith  talked — oh,  it  wasn't  anything  she  said,  it  was 
just  my  own  unreasoning  suspicion — a  suspicion  I 
couldn't  bear.  So  I  left  her.  I  came,  on  the  spur  of 
the  moment,  to  see  if  you'd  see  me  and  explain  away 
what  I  fear."  She  hurried  on,  with  her  voice  clear 
and  low  in  spite  of  her  breathlessness.  "Am  I  in  any 
way  the  cause  of  your  leaving  Paul?  That's  what  I 
want  to  know;  that's  what,  whether  you  like  it  or  not, 
you've  got  to  tell  me." 

Anne-Marie's  thoughts  seemed  for  a  moment  unable 
to  reach  beyond  her  gratitude  for  the  fact  that  she 
could  return  a  look  which  was  flawlessly  cold  to  the 
feeling  with  which  Geraldine's  eyes  searched  her  face. 

"You  are  asking  me  a  question,  I  understand.  You 
can  scarcely  expect  me  to  reply  until  you  have  acknowl- 
edged by  what  right  you  ask  it." 

"And  if  I  acknowledge  my  interest  in  the  matter,  I 
commit  myself  ?  Is  that  what  you  mean  ?  But  you  see," 
Mrs.  Herring  continued,  still  with  her  suggestion  of  an 
assumed  recklessness  and  an  inner  fervour,  "I  don't 
happen  to  care  how  I  commit  myself.  You're  very 
quick;  I'm  not  as  quick,  but  my  position's  stronger." 
Her  eyes  met  Anne-Marie's  directly.  "You've  got  so 
much  more  to  lose  than  I." 

She  had  spoken  without  the  slightest  shade  of  either 
irony  or  reproach,  and  the  directness  of  the  words, 
even  more  than  the  sense  of  any  trespass  on  her  own 


138     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

dignity,  was  what  for  a  moment  arrested  Anne-Marie's 
reply.  "If  you  have  come  here  to  discuss  my  feel- 
ings  "  she  began. 

Geraldine's  look  had  strayed  over  the  room,  and  it  re- 
turned to  Anne-Marie  with  a  sudden  impatience.  "But 
why  on  earth  should  I  have  come,  unless  we  could  dis- 
cuss your  feelings?  What  exists,  except  how  your 
feeling  acts  on  Paul  and  Paul's  on  you?  That's  the 
whole  reason  for  my  speaking  to  you — for  my  appealing 
to  you,  if  you  prefer.  I  knew  that  unless  you  still  cared 
for  Paul  you  would  never  have  behaved  as  you  have 
behaved." 

Anne-Marie  was  conscious  that  the  intensity  of  her 
effort  for  composure  insensibly  weakened.  Her  thoughts 
had  become  dark  and  obscure  instead  of  clear  and  hard. 
Her  penetrating  sense  of  personal  injury  was  still  as 
acute  as  her  detestation  of  such  a  scene — for  which,  as 
her  perceptive  irony  had  registered,  Geraldine,  in  the 
elaborate  exaggeration  of  her  appearance,  so  aptly 
looked  the  part.  But  in  spite  of  her  resentment  of  her 
own  wrong  and  her  resentment  of  everything  about 
Mrs.  Herring,  from  her  loose  yet  imperative  manner  to 
her  subtle  lack  of  distinction,  she  had  to  grant  that 
Geraldine  had,  at  the  moment,  the  force  of  sincerity. 
Even  an  interview  of  this  nature,  in  her  own  code,  had 
prescriptions  and  rules  for  its  very  violence.  The  di- 
rectness with  which  Geraldine  had  turned  her  own  con- 
clusion upon  her  made  her  colour  rise. 

"What  is  it  you  want  to  say  to  me?  I  am  scarcely 
prepared  to  discuss  my  husband,  or  my  relation  to  him, 
with  you."  Her  head  rose  higher.  "But  if  you  feel 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     139 

that  you  care  to  discuss  with  me  your  relation  with  him, 
that  is  your  affair.  I  suppose  I  must  acquiesce." 

"You  suppose  you  must  acquiesce,  and  make  the  men- 
tal reservation  that  I'm  indelicate  and  indecent?  Well, 
make  it ;  I  can't  say  I  mind  much.  All  I  do  care  about 
is  that  you  should  know  what  really  exists  between  Paul 
and  me;  because,  of  course,"  she  finished,  as  if  more 
to  herself  than  to  'Anne-Marie,  "that's  what  is  at  the 
bottom  of  it  all." 

Anne-Marie  waited  again.  "Yes !  That  is  at  the  bot- 
tom of  what  has  happened,  if  you  want  to  know  it.  Ah, 
but  of  course  you  know  it — you  knew  it !  A  woman  who 
does  the  kind  of  things  you  do  foresees  the  conse- 
quences." 

Geraldine's  impatience  showed  again.  "But  of 
course  I  didn't  foresee  the  consequences!  I  didn't  fore- 
see any  consequences.  I'd  been  seeing  Paul  for  months 
— ever  since  I've  been  so  much  with  Edith,  practically 
ever  since  your  marriage.  Haven't  you  guessed  that  I 
didn't  foresee  the  consequences,  since  the  consequences 
for  myself — in  a  view  like  yours,  which  takes  so  much 
account  of  the  chances  of  a  good  match — weren't  par- 
ticularly fortunate?  No,"  she  turned  away  and  con- 
tinued with  the  same  energy,  "I  honestly  didn't.  I'd 
honestly  thought  I  could  marry.  I  sent  for  Paul  be- 
cause of  that;  you  can  believe  it  or  not,  as  you  please, 
but  I  shouldn't  have  talked  to  him,  that  day,  unless  I'd 
really  believed  myself  settled  and  sure.  Well,  I  was 
wrong.  It  was  my  own  mis  judgment.  Understand — 
Paul  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  it.  He  never  even 
suspected  the  truth — the  truth  which  I,  on  my  side,  had 
continued  to  live  by.  And  I  suppose,"  she  turned  back 


140    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

again,  with  a  faint  mockery,  "that  you  think  there  is 
only  one  reason  that  a  man  like  Paul  defends  a  woman !" 
She  stopped  for  a  moment  and  then  she  added  briefly: 
"How  extraordinary  that  you  shouldn't  have  known  him 
better  than  that!" 

Anne-Marie  felt  the  finest  nerves  of  her  pride  stir 

at  the  touch.  "If  you  think  that  you  are  at  liberty " 

she  began. 

Geraldine  caught  her  up.  "It's  you  yourself  who 
have  given  me  the  liberty.  Oh,  I  guessed  it  before  I 
knew  it.  It  was  you  who  went  to  Arthur." 

The  colour  had  faded  from  Anne-Marie's  face.  "In 
the  same  situation  I  should  do  so  again.  If  I  dare  to 
let  myself  think  of  what  I  have  had  to  bear " 

"But  you've  not  for  an  instant  supposed  I  didn't  un- 
derstand that!  It  was  that,"  Mrs.  Herring  spoke  as 
directly  as  before,  "which  made  me  so  immensely  sorry 
for  you.  At  first,  of  course,  I  wasn't.  I'd  my  own  dif- 
ficulties to  think  of,  and  when  Arthur  finally  let  me  see 
what  he'd  been  told — he  followed  me  down  to  Wash- 
ington and  I  saw  him  there  yesterday — I  knew  it  must  be 
you  who  had  done  it.  I've  had  my  own  frank  talks  with 
Arthur  before  now,  and  he  knows  well  enough  what 
to  think  of  me.  But  I  shouldn't  have  chosen  to  have 
this  reach  him  in  this  way,  when  his  own  feelings  were 
raw  and  resentful.  As  I  tell  you,  I  thoroughly  hated 
what  you'd  done ;  but  when  I  began  to  see,  when  I  began 
to  get  at  the  truth,  I  understood  why  you'd  done  it. 
You  see  that  after  all,"  her  smile  gleamed  faintly,  "we 
were  in  the  same  dilemma." 

Anne-Marie  waited,  conscious  that  the  confusion  of 
her  thoughts  had  reached  a  point  beyond  speech.  In 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     141 

spite  of  her  rigorous  resolve,  she  was  obscurely  moved. 
She  was  intellectually  too  just  not  to  see  that  this  was 
not  the  Mrs.  Herring  of  trivial  affectations;  or  rather 
that  she  was  the  same  woman  beneath  whose  trivial 
affectations  there  lay  the  hard  wisdom  of  experience. 
It  did  not  matter  how  she  had  behaved;  she  had  evi- 
dently felt.  Anne-Marie  was  accustomed  to  the  potency 
of  quick  and  brilliant  emotions,  but  not  to  their  con- 
version— and  especially  by  a  person  of  such  exterior — 
into  a  forceful  steadiness.  For  a  moment  the  strange 
blend,  in  her  companion's  face,  of  resistance  and  inde- 
cision, of  patience  and  impatience,  held  her  attention 
rivetted. 

"What  do  you  mean,"  she  presently  asked,  "by  the 
same  dilemma?  You  mean  to  grant,  I  suppose,  that 
you  love  my  husband?" 

"It's  of  very  little  consequence  to  me  what  I  grant. 
If  you  want  me  to  put  it  into  words,  it's  just  that  when 
he  and  I  broke  things  up,  three  years  ago,  he  no  longer 
cared  for  me  and  I — well,  with  me  it  was  different. 
You've  left  me  very  little  to  myself,  between  you  all. 
It's  only  Paul  who's  understood — and  without  my  ever 
asking  him  to  understand — that  there  are  things  one 
doesn't  finger  and  turn  over.  That's  the  only  thing 
I  can't  forgive  you" — Geraldine  stopped — "that  you 
hadn't  the  sense  to  see  why  he  shielded  me,  and  to  let 
everything  else  go." 

"Does  one  let  such  things  go,  with  such  a  past  be- 
hind them?"  Anne-Marie  broke  out.  "Do  you  forget 
that?  You  will  be  telling  me  next  that  what  happened 
between  you  and  Paul  before  our  marriage " 

Geraldine   took    up   her   phrase,   with   a   perceptible 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

stiffening  of  her  face.  "I'll  tell  you  about  what  hap- 
pened before  your  marriage  exactly  nothing." 

"What  does  that  affirm  or  deny?  What  do  you  ex- 
pect me  to  understand  from  it?" 

"I  don't  expect  you  to  understand  much ;  you  haven't, 
all  along,  understood  anything."  She  spoke  without 
rancour  but  with  the  same  directness.  "All  I  mean  is 
that  about  that  part — about  what  happened  before — 
you've  nothing  to  say.  I've  laid  everything  which  in 
any  way  concerns  you  frankly  before  you.  If  you  can't 
see  what  Paul's  felt  for  you — and  I'm  not  sure  that  you 
can — that's  your  own  affair.  I've  had  to  make  what 
I've  felt  for  him  your  own  affair  too,  since  if  I  hadn't 
you'd  never  have  understood  it.  But  what  happened  be- 
fore belongs  to  me;  not  to  him,  because  he  didn't  par- 
ticularly make  it  belong  to  him,  but  to  me.  It's  finished, 
it's  over  with."  Her  eyes  softened  and  wavered  again, 
and  their  message  to  Anne-Marie  ended  in  the  uncer- 
tainty of  her  smile.  "I've  something  you'll  never  have, 
and  which  I  don't  mean  to  give  you,"  she  ended. 

She  turned  and  walked  towards  the  door;  at  the 
threshold  she  paused  and  faced  around  again. 

"There's  one  thing  you  owe  me,  and  that  is  to  tell 
him  that  you  were  wrong — that  you  believe  me." 

Anne-Marie's  words  seemed  to  come  without  her  will 
but  with  the  conviction  of  finality.  "Yes;  I  do  believe 
you,"  she  answered. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     143 


XV 


ANNE-MARIE  had  hesitated,  after  Mrs.  Herring 
left  her,  only  long  enough  to  look  at  her  watch 
and  to  make  a  quick  comparison  between  the  hour  and 
her  knowledge  of  Cushing's  habits.  She  had  then  hur- 
riedly put  on  her  hat  and  furs,  and  a  moment  later  she 
went  out  of  the  hotel. 

It  was  that  time  of  the  winter  afternoon  when  the 
first  changing  of  the  light  filled  the  streets  with  early 
dusk.  As  she  walked  quickly  along,  the  contact  of  the 
keen  air  and  the  brush  of  the  crowds  became  part  of 
the  stimulus  of  her  definite  and  decisive  energy.  To 
her  reawakened  perceptions  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the 
movement  on  the  pavements  assumed  the  same  shifting 
significances  as  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  suggestions  in 
the  faces  which  streamed  past  her.  Her  sense  of  life 
was  sharpened  to  a  point  where  each  sensation  of  touch 
and  sight  had  the  quality  of  a  revelation.  It  was  a 
revelation  which  affected  her,  like  all  her  revelations, 
only  personally.  The  fact  that  her  problems  were  iden- 
tical with  other  problems  scarcely  touched  her.  She 
had  an  aristocracy  of  attitude,  in  regard  to  all  identi- 
ties of  standpoint,  in  which  Gushing  had  always  been 
amused  to  see  a  compound  of  childlike  ignorance  and 
astute  cynicism.  It  was  rather  that  the  pale  glimmer  of 
the  western  sky,  the  darkness  which  displaced  it,  the 
gradual  cessation  of  light  and  the  gradual  rise  of  the 
shadows  which  enriched  and  blackened  the  streets,  the 
touch  of  one  hand  on  the  other  in  her  muff  and  the 
touch  of  the  silky  hairs  of  the  fur  which  blew  against 


144     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

her  cheek,  became  integral  parts  of  her  relation  to  her 
problem. 

Her  single  desire  was  to  acquit  herself  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment  of  her  moral  debt  to  Mrs.  Herring. 
She  could  not  have  named  a  single  proof  which  had  de- 
termined her  belief  in  Geraldine's  sincerity.  But  it  was 
nevertheless  positive  and  final.  If  she  was  conscious, 
beneath  the  clear  resolve  of  her  present  confidence,  of 
a  faint  surprise  that  she  should  have  been  so  convinced, 
it  was  a  surprise  more  caused  by  her  own  actions 
than  by  Mrs.  Herring's.  In  looking  back  at  the  past 
two  years  she  had  for  the  first  time  a  sense  of  chances 
missed,  of  opportunities  unperceived  and  importances 
evaded.  Yet  in  spite  of  the  genuineness  of  her  admis- 
sions she  recognised  the  superiority  of  her  own  situa- 
tion to  Geraldine's.  To  see  Gushing  through  other  eyes, 
and  to  have  the  proof  of  the  tribute  which  Mrs.  Her- 
ring's feeling  had  continued  to  pay  him,  accentuated  her 
sense  that  she  had  had  possession  of  deep  places  in 
his  sentiment  of  which  no  one  else  would  ever  sus- 
pect the  existence.  However  she  might  have  failed  to 
maintain  such  a  claim,  she  knew  now  that  it  was  beyond 
another  woman's  reach.  The  very  aggressiveness  with 
which  Mrs.  Herring  had  talked  to  her — and  though  she 
frankly  acknowledged  it  had  gained  its  point — was  a  proof 
of  limitations  which  were  the  greatest  factor  in  the  con- 
solation of  her  jealousy.  Her  confidence  had  warmed 
her  eyes  and  quickened  her  breath  when  she  turned  into 
Cushing's  street. 

There  were  numberless  signs — the  surprise  of  the 
butler's  face,  the  disturbingly  familiar  air  of  the  hall 
and  of  Cushing's  letters  and  gloves  on  the  table  by  the 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     145 

door,  the  ceremony  with  which  she  heard  herself  ask 
to  be  shown  to  the  library  to  wait  until  her  husband 
should  come  in — all  of  which  accentuated  her  conscious- 
ness of  the  peculiarities  in  her  errand.  She  had  never 
felt  more  completely  the  alien  in  regard  to  every  side 
of  Cushing's  life,  and  as  she  noted  this  she  was  struck, 
too,  by  the  charm  her  removal  from  it  had  lent  the 
house — the  indescribable  charm,  she  supposed,  which 
hangs  about  every  man  who  lives  with  a  declared  inde- 
pendence of  a  woman.  Her  sense  of  rooms  was  as  keen 
as  her  sense  of  people,  and  the  close  scent  of  books 
and  of  wood  smoke,  the  low  lights  and  the  reflexions 
of  the  fire  in  the  brown  and  green  tints  of  the  leather 
chairs,  raised  before  her,  in  a  second,  the  recollections 
which  had  so  peopled  and  furnished  the  place.  She  had 
always  spoken  to  Gushing  of  his  favourite  room  as  one 
whose  luxuries  were  extravagant  rather  than  comfortable. 
It  was  without  the  soft  charm  which  can  lend  a  bloom 
and  a  grace  even  to  shabbiness  and  depletion.  Now  the 
room  seemed  to  her  exactly  that — softer,  and  full  of 
unseen  presences  and  demands. 

She  had  gone  to  the  desk,  with  an  instinctive  impulse 
to  loosen  the  roses  which  had  been  placed  there  with 
the  awkward  precision  of  a  servant's  hand.  The  sight 
of  her  husband's  writing  materials  and  of  the  familiar 
covers  of  his  note  books  and  letter  cases  touched  her 
memories  as  penetratingly  as  the  touch  of  the  leather 
against  her  fingers.  Their  separation  had  marked  for 
her  the  boundaries  of  their  mental  separation,  and  she 
felt  keenly  conscious  of  all  the  privacies  in  him  which 
she  had  never  penetrated.  She  found  herself  wonder- 
ing not  only  how  he  had  lived,  during  days  which  had 


146    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

been  so  driftless  for  her,  but  also  how  he  had  lived 
since  their  marriage — how  he  had  combined  the  inner 
needs  of  which  she  now  began  to  have  a  vague  sense 
with  the  requirements  of  his  outer  life.  She  raised 
her  eyes  and  looked  around  her  again;  there  had  been 
ways,  in  spite  of  everything,  in  which  she  had  satisfied 
him.  Now  that  she  was  free  from  the  pressure  of 
their  different  interpretations,  she  could  smile  as  she 
remembered  the  profound  forms  his  satisfaction  had 
taken.  After  all,  she  thought,  the  interview  she  was 
about  to  have  would  differ  from  the  one  she  had  just 
had  in  that  there  was  an  undeniable  difference  between 
her  power  to  affect  a  woman  and  her  power  to  affect 
a  man. 

As  she  waited  it  struck  her  as  strange  that  the  acci- 
dent of  his  delay,  beyond  the  usual  hour  at  his  office, 
should  put  to  the  test  of  reflection  the  impulse  on 
which  she  had  acted.  She  was  aware  that  she  did 
not  want  to  reflect.  When  she  had  left  the  hotel,  and 
during  her  short  and  hurried  walk,  she  had  made  it  a 
point  with  herself  that  she  should  not  consider  her 
next  step.  She  knew  that  in  most  lives  the  privileged 
moments  were  rare  when  one  could  yield  to  an  emo- 
tion so  large  that  its  cost  was  recognised  and  acceptable. 
One  of  those  turning  points  presented  itself  to  her. 
The  maturity  of  her  power  of  such  judgments  assured 
her  that  she  would  rarely  be  in  a  position  where  her 
unconditional  surrender  would  yield  her  so  much.  She 
did  not  deny  the  costs  of  the  issue  or  its  importance — 
indeed,  its  single  importance,  in  her  own  experience. 
When  she  had  married  it  had  been  inevitable  that  her 
personal  feelings  should  easily  adjust  themselves  to  what 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    147 

was  the  plainest  expediency.  Marriage  was  not,  as  she 
had  reminded  herself,  the  issue  which  involved  the  issue 
of  the  feelings.  Now  it  seemed  to  her  that  the  decision 
of  all  her  life,  as  a  question  of  conscious  choice,  hung 
for  the  first  time  in  the  balance. 

She  had  continued  to  stand,  one  hand  resting  upon 
the  desk  and  one  hand  pressed  to  her  heart,  absorbed 
in  an  expectancy  which  reached  its  keenest  point  when 
she  heard  Cushing's  step  in  the  hall  outside  and  the 
sharp  note  of  his  voice.  A  moment  later  he  opened 
the  door  and  came  in;  and  even  with  the  betrayal  of 
his  visible  effort  for  composure,  she  felt  the  faint  drop 
which  the  shock  of  actuality  brought  about  in  her  own 
mood. 

"Benson  told  me  you'd  come — I'm  sorry  you  had  to 
wait,"  he  began  instantly.  "If  I'd  known " 

"I  did  not  know  myself,  until  half  an  hour  ago,  that 
I  should  have  to  see  you,"  she  returned;  and  she  added, 
with  her  invariable  ceremony,  "I  hope  that  you  had 

no   engagement,   that  I   am  not   interfering "     She 

broke  off.  Cushing's  light  flush,  as  he  stood  in  the 
nearer  circle  of  the  lamp  on  the  desk,  moved  her  like 
his  obvious  preoccupation  and  inattention.  She  felt 
herself  flush  in  return,  and  she  was  even  conscious  of 
the  half- formed  resolve  to  step  forward  and  give  him 
her  hand.  Then  she  saw  that  his  face  changed  and  set 
in  its  familiar  lines  of  a  dryly  humorous  indifference. 
She  could  almost  phrase  to  herself  the  kind  of  comment 
which  must  be  passing  through  his  mind.  She  could 
present  herself  like  this,  with  the  attitude  of  all  her 
beauty  so  charged  with  meaning,  and  yet  it  had  been  his 
experience  that  part  of  the  quality  of  her  surprises  was 


148    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

that  they  might  concern  nothing  more  important  than 
the  hour  at  which  she  should  dine. 

She  gave  a  quick  sigh.  After  all,  she  thought,  with 
her  irony  turning  on  herself,  she  had  gone  through 
enough  loneliness,  in  the  past  week,  to  make  it  a 
pleasure  to  see  again  even  the  easy  fit  of  his  clothes  and 
the  competent  motions  of  his  hands,  and  she  could  think 
of  even  a  quarrel  with  him  with  some  satisfaction. 

"Yes,  I  wanted  to  see  you,"  she  pursued;  "I  found, 
indeed,  that  I  must  see  you.  I  am  sure  you  will  know 
why.  This  afternoon,  an  hour  ago,  Mrs.  Herring  came 
to  me." 

"Geraldine  went  to  you  ?"  He  was  evidently  held,  for 
a  moment,  by  his  surprise.  "Ah,  I  didn't  count  on  her 
doing  that!" 

"You  count  on  none  of  us;  you  are  the  one  who,  all 
along,  lives  for  yourself,  are  you  not?"  Her  tremulous 
smile  was  accentuated  now  by  the  rise  of  her  eyebrows. 
"Well,  there  it  is.  She  came  to  tell  me — to  prove  to 
me — that  I  was  wrong,  that  what  I  suspected  was  un- 
founded and  untrue." 

She  waited  for  a  moment.  The  grave  steadiness  of 
Cushing's  look  showed  her  how  deeply  he  was  moved 
and  she  felt  again  a  fugitive  flash  of  jealousy. 

"You  think  it  was  admirable  of  her?"  she  asked. 
"You  admire  the  conduct  she  has  pursued  in  regard 
to  me?  Yes,  that  I  understand." 

"I  think  that  all  that's  necessary  for  you  to  under- 
stand," he  spoke  deliberately,  "is  your  own  mistake. 
We  both  benefit  immensely  by  Geraldine's  generosity; 
the  best  return  we  can  make  is  not  to  discuss  it.  It 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     149 

can't  be  what  one  wants — in  a  situation  like  hers" — he 
hesitated — "to  be  discussed." 

"Of  course  it  was  generous  of  her — that  I  admit. 
And  I  myself — I  was  perhaps  hasty  and  ungenerous.  I 
do  not  wish  to  be  so  now.  I  want  you  to  understand 
how  fully  I  see  my  mistake;  that  I  acknowledge  that, 
whatever  may  have  happened  in  the  past,  so  far  as  my 
accusation  went  I  was  wrong." 

"Yes;  fatally  wrong,"  said  Gushing  briefly. 

"It  is  not  my  habit  to  shirk  the  necessary  admissions." 
Her  shoulders  rose  and  fell.  "Yes,  she  was  generous; 
she  was  even  kind,  in  her  incredible  way.  For  my  own 
part  I  cannot  see  her  as  anything  except  incredible.  Her 
taste,  in  moral  matters  at  least,  is  untrustworthy.  But 
you  must  understand  that  I  grant  it :  I  was  wrong." 

He  still  confronted  her  steadily.  "If  you'd  granted 
that  in  the  first  place,  you  would  have  saved  us  all  that 
misery  and  that  humiliation."  He  paused  again,  and 
then  she  felt  the  flare  of  his  intolerance.  "But  that's 
it — I've  learned  that  much;  you're  incapable  of  such 
recognitions." 

"Let  us  grant  it,"  she  returned  coldly.  "From  your 
point  of  view  it  is  true.  I  am,  as  you  say,  incapable  of 
them." 

Her  voice  had  broken  on  the  last  words ;  and  it  seemed 
to  her  to  be  in  response  to  its  tremor  that  she  could 
feel  Cushing's  attitude  change.  She  raised  her  eyes 
to  his.  His  face,  in  spite  of  its  careful  repression, 
seemed  to  her  suddenly  alive  with  an  insistent  question. 
In  the  few  words  he  had  spoken  he  had  been  as  far  as 
possible  from  the  plea  of  feeling.  Yet  now  he  pressed 
her  with  it  as  actually  as  with  a  touch.  She  might  have 


150    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

foreseen,  she  thought,  that  he  would  put  his  appeal 
before  her  like  this,  with  no  slightest  break  in  his  own 
reticence  and  no  sacrifice  of  his  tacit  blame  of  her  be- 
haviour, but  with  his  inarticulateness  itself  alive  with 
his  hope.  There  was  in  him  now  the  apparent  quality 
of  a  suffering  which  had  penetrated  to  the  inmost  places 
of  sentiment.  It  reminded  her  what  he  himself  must 
have  paid  for  the  failure  of  his  idealisation  of  her, 
and  her  pity  merged  confusedly  into  the  stir  of  her 
agitation. 

She  broke  out  hurriedly,  with  the  odd  sense  that  she 
answered  the  question  his  silence  had  put  to  her. 

"But  how  can  I  come  back  to  you?  How  is  it  pos- 
sible"— she  spread  out  her  hands — "that  I  should  do  so 
without— 

"Without  caring  for  me  ?"  He  had  caught  her  up  in  a 
flash,  and  though  he  stopped  there  she  was  more  vividly 
aware  than  before  of  all  his  silence  implied. 

"Ah,  don't  you  see  that  that  is  my  difficulty — that  I 
feel  all  the  feeling  between  us  ?" 

The  room  seemed,  to  her  strained  sense,  to  give  back 
to  her  again  all  the  long  echoes  her  question  stirred ;  to 
call  up  all  the  beauties  of  their  relation — the  responses 
she  had  given  to  Gushing  and  the  responses  she  had 
inspired  in  him.  He  had  moved  forward  and  rested  his 
hand  on  the  desk  beside  hers.  She  was  conscious  of  a 
quick  wish  that  he  should  not  touch  her;  and  at  the 
same  time  of  a  faint  surprise  that  he  should  not  cast 
aside  his  consideration  and  understand  the  strength 
which  the  gesture  would  give  his  appeal. 

"You  can't  really  think  that!  You  can't  really  be- 
lieve it's  impossible  for  us  both  to  concede  and  con- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     151 

form ;  and  what  on  earth  do  concessions  matter,"  he  pro- 
tested, "when  you  still  care  for  me?" 

"But  that  is  just  it.  That  is  the  reason" — she  shook 
her  head — "I  cannot  understand  it,  but  I  so  intensely 
believe  it !  No,  Paul,  we  have  cared  for  each  other — you 
and  I — ah,  but  we  have  cared  uniquely!  But  you,  too, 
you  must  see  that  that  is  just  the  reason  I  despair.  If 

we  had  our  love  alone  to  deal  with !"  Her  smile 

showed  for  a  second  through  her  tears.  "But  we  have 
also  marriage;  we  are  married;  that  fact,  if  we  live  to- 
gether, we  must  accept.  Some  love  means  a  wider  form 
of  feeling;  ours — well,  it  has  been  wonderful,  but  it  has 
been  special.  One  does  not  apply  a  thing  as  delicate 
and  beautiful  as  that  to  the  test  of  our  profound  un- 
likeness,  of  the  antagonism  which — tenez,  but  in  an- 
other hour ! — would  arise  between  us.  No" — she  made  a 
wide  gesture — "you  will  never  know  what  it  has  cost 
me  to  feel — to  see — how  I  could  stir  you,  and  yet  to 
know  that  in  my  feeling  itself  there  was  a  quality  which 
would  offend  you  and  which  would  make  me  feel  your 
offences  to  me!" 

Cushing's  next  words  were  accompanied  by  a  repeti- 
tion of  his  slight  colour.  "I  believe,"  she  heard  him 
saying,  "that  you  were  made  to  feel  everything!" 

The  mist  in  her  eyes  warmed  and  thickened.  "Ah,  if 
you  knew  how  I  detest  such  a  failure — such  a  degrada- 
tion! But  we  are  the  same  people  we  were  when  I 
left  you.  I  should  be  coming  back  to  you  because  of  my 
feeling  alone,  and  not  because  of  what  I  believe  to  be 
possible.  In  marriage  one's  greatest  necessity  is  con- 
sistency ;  and  our  consistencies,  poor  things !  But  we 

should  see  the  very  reasons  of  my  return  differently. 


152     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

No,  we  are  two  people  between  whom  there  can  exist 
no  compromise.  There  it  is :  I  admit  I  am  forever  see- 
ing nuances  in  what  you  accept  as  simplicities,  or  sim- 
plicities in  your  nuances  which  I  cannot  even  express 
to  you!"  In  the  silent  attention  with  which  he  fol- 
lowed her  she  seemed  to  see,  with  a  sudden  dread,  the 
accomplishment  of  her  own  end  and  the  acquiescence 
which  his  sense  of  consideration  would  give  her.  At 
the  meeting  of  the  two  thoughts — her  plea  and  the  sad- 
ness of  its  successful  issue — the  wave  of  her  emotion 
broke  over  her.  "Ah,  if  you  had  asked  me  to  come 
back  before  I  had  time  to  see  it  straight !" 

He  corrected  her  gravely.  "I'd  never  have  asked  you 
— I  didn't  ask  you.  It's  for  you  to  come." 

"Then — but  then  I  should  have  come.  Yes,  and  gone 
again.  Or  worse,  I  should  have  stayed;  and  what  hap- 
piness we  had  would  have  cost  us  a  revival  of  all  that 
has  been  debased  between  us.  That  is  it.  One  cannot 

so  debase  things "  Her  finest  smile,  like  the  visible 

compound  of  both  her  scepticism  and  her  resignation,  lit 
her  face.  "If  only  I  were  like  Mrs.  Herring!" 

"You  mean  that  Geraldine " 

"Oh,  I  mean  more  than  that  she  would  not  see,  that 
she  would  not  be  aware.  It  would  be  so  simple  for 
her!  She  has  not  my  sense  of  expediency — not,  if  you 
put  it  so,  my  knowledge  of  life.  She  would  sacrifice 
everything  for  the  feeling  of  the  moment,  forgetting 
that  in  marriage  it  is  the  years  and  not  the  moments 
which  must  be  lived.  But  how  strange  it  all  is!  Her 
advantage  of  me  is  deeper  than  that."  Her  face  quiv- 
ered. "She — she  is  satisfied  to  live  with  her  ideal  of 
you — to  get,  in  her  fantastic  way,  the  emotion  of  her 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     153 

memories;  and  I — I  shall  continue  to  suffer,  to  detest 
it."  She  paused  and  drew  a  quick  breath.  "Oh,  but  if 
I  could  do  it!" 

Gushing  did  not  move  for  a  moment;  when  he  did 
so  he  merely  bent  nearer  her  and  said,  in  a  low  tone: 
"I'll  risk  everything — I'll  accept  everything!" 

"But  how  can  I  do  it?"  She  took  a  hurried  step 
away  from  him,  with,  an  actual  sense  of  being  swept  off 
her  feet  into  a  turmoil  where  the  mere  sound  of  his 
voice  would  overcome  her.  Then,  as  she  turned  back, 
she  felt  the  flame  fall  and  die.  "No,  it  is  no  use.  We 
know  too  well  what  we  have  had  to  bear.  How  I  wish 
I  did  not  see  it  all  so  clearly!  The  same  thing  would 
happen  again;  it  would  be  exactly  the  same,  I  assure 
you,"  she  ended. 

She  saw  that  the  look  he  had  fixed  on  her  fell,  and 
a  second  later  he  had  returned  to  his  usual  manner. 
"There's  nothing  more  to  say,  then.  When  you've  made 
up  your  mind  what  steps  you  want  me  to  take,  you'll 
let  me  know  ?" 

She  felt  her  tears  rise  uncontrollably  and  they 
clouded  her  voice.  "You  think  me  odious — you  think 
me  wrong!" 

He  had  turned,  with  the  obvious  intention  of  open- 
ing the  door  for  her,  and  he  looked  around  with  a  brief 
surprise.  "But  don't  you  see  that,  in  a  certain  way, 
that's  just  what  I  don't  do?  It  was  a  risk,  our  mar- 
riage; and  now  that  you  grant  that  I've  been  at  least 
decent,  now  that  we've  faced  the  possibility  of  trying 
it  again — the  thing  we  can't  deny  is  that  there  was  reason 
after  reason  besides  your  suspicion  to  part  us.  I  didn't 
see  it  then;  but  your  distrust  of  me,  and  my  distrust  of 


154     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

your  distrust,  were  perhaps  what  brought  the  whole  thing 
to  a  head.     I  don't  pretend  now  that  you're  not  right. 
The  only  difference  between  us  is  that  for  a  feeling  such 
as  we've  had,  I'd  risk  everything  and  you  wouldn't." 
She  shook  her  head  firmly.     "No,   I  should  not;  I 

know,  I  suppose,  too  much "    She  faltered.    He  had 

gone  to  the  door  and  opened  it,  and  as  he  turned  his 
back  to  her  something  in  the  brace  of  his  shoulders,  so 
slight  a  betrayal  that  it  was  nothing,  reminded  her  of 
what  he  must  conceal.  Her  emotion  gathered  into  a 
current  which  tossed  her  once  more  to  the  brink  of  a 
revulsion ;  but  she  felt  herself  sustained,  in  some  curious 
manner,  by  the  example  of  his  -determination,  and  a 
moment  later  she  had  passed  out  of  the  room. 


BOOK  II 


XVI 

AS  the  heavy  doors  closed,  with  a  long  reverbera- 
tion which  rose  and  faded  to  an  echo  against  the 
stone  vaultings,  Anne-Marie  raised  her  head  and  looked 
around  her. 

The  effect  of  a  silence  briefly  broken  and  gradually  re- 
sumed reminded  her  of  the  constant  silence  which  the 
wide  room  where  she  stood  enclosed,  and  which  seemed 
less  the  omission  of  sound  than  one  of  the  attendant 
consecrations  of  beauty.  At  the  end  of  the  gallery  to 
her  left,  at  the  convergence  of  two  walls  hung  in  velvet 
of  so  soft  a  tint  that  it  seemed  to  have  taken  the  colour 
of  time  itself,  a  tall  Greek  vase  stood,  pale  against 
the  background  of  the  trees  in  the  garden  outside,  and 
the  sun  struck  and  lit  the  nobility  of  its  curves.  To  the 
right  the  first  pictures  began  to  show,  spreading  into  a 
long  line  of  varying  colour;  she  caught  sight  of  the  warm, 
brilliant  flesh  of  a  Rubens  and  the  purple  of  a  Veronese 
drapery,  which  Irish  had  once  told  her  was  unequalled 
for  texture  and  flow.  Through  the  archway  she  faced 
she  could  see  the  deep  greens  and  the  froth-like  whites 
in  the  first  cases  of  jades ;  beyond  them  were  the  crystals, 
the  porcelains,  and  beyond  those  the  fantastic  world  of  the 
Chinese  paintings.  Though  she  had  always  been  acutely 
aware  of  the  beauty  of  these  things,  they  seemed  to  her 
to  have  received,  in  the  passage  of  events,  a  connec- 
tion with  the  most  poignant  personal  meanings. 

157 


158     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

She  had  had  the  strange  sense,  particularly  in  the 
last  hours,  of  the  logic  with  which  human  character  meets 
the  illogical  turns  of  life.  Looking  back  over  the  past 
five  months,  first  in  their  collective  and  larger  significance 
and  then  with  the  gradual  clarifying,  in  her  memory,  of 
the  details  of  weeks  and  days,  the  events  which  had 
followed  her  break  with  Gushing  seemed  to  have  their 
own  continuity.  Her  sense  of  a  vast  impersonal  signifi- 
cance in  what  personally  affected  her — her  consciousness 
of  the  ebb  and  flow  of  tendencies  rather  than  of  the 
over-importance  of  the  individual — took  the  place  with 
her  of  those  habits  of  introspection  which,  in  American 
women,  had  so  frequently  astonished  her.  It  was  not, 
after  all,  she  said  to  herself  as  her  eyes  travelled  slowly 
up  and  down  the  gallery,  the  accidents  of  life  which 
counted;  they  existed  merely  on  the  surface,  and  they 
were  usually  too  extraordinary  or  too  subtle  to  be  in- 
teresting. What  must  always  count,  in  the  long  run, 
was  the  general  truthfulness,  to  training  and  to  taste, 
with  which  one  met  them. 

The  first  thing  which  had  broken  into  the  habits  of 
monotony  which  she  had  assumed  in  her  rootless  days  at 
her  hotel,  and  during  the  period  of  inertia  which  had 
succeeded  her  talk  with  Gushing,  was  the  appearance  in 
New  York,  for  a  few  days  only,  of  her  cousin  Madame 
von  Alfons.  She  was  on  her  way  back  to  France,  after 
an  absence  from  home  and  a  long  trans-Pacific  trip 
which,  as  she  frankly  said,  the  part  of  prudence  had 
advised.  Their  talks  had  been  long  enough  to  place 
Anne-Marie  once  more  in  direct  relation  to  her  natural 
standards.  Madame  von  Alfons  had  indeed  been  so  sur- 
prised at  the  fact  that  Gushing  and  his  wife  had  decided 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     159 

on  a  legal  separation  that  her  only  conclusion  was  that 
Anne-Marie  must  have  lost  her  powers  of  judgment, 
through  contact  with  the  contagious  and  sentimentally 
inexact  views  of  her  adopted  life.  Even  if  her  suspi- 
cions of  her  husband  had  had  every  foundation,  she 
reminded  Anne-Marie  that  such  a  difficulty  was  less 
tangible  than  the  loss  of  her  position  and  her  home. 
Since  she  had  absolved  Gushing  it  was  even  more 
extraordinary  that  she  should  have  balanced  the  privi- 
leges which  went  with  him  against  all  this  confu- 
sion and  uncertainty.  Anne-Marie  had  evidently  for- 
gotten that  one's  business  in  life  was  not  to  assert  one's 
self  but  to  adapt  one's  self.  Anne-Marie  parted  from  her 
cousin  with  the  sense  that  the  hard  light  of  a  disintegrat- 
ing clarity  had  been  turned  upon  her  actions — that  all 
that  was  important  was  that  the  world  was  composed 
of  two  sexes,  and  that  everything  would  have  gone  well 
between  her  husband  and  herself  if  only  she  had  been 
wise  enough  to  treat  him  with  a  more  subtle  indirec- 
tion. 

Anne-Marie  herself  had  vaguely  acquiesced  in  attribut- 
ing her  situation  to  the  influences  of  a  morality  which 
was  alien  to  her.  The  disagreeable  sequences  of  her 
act — her  constant  fear  of  meeting  Gushing  and  all  the 
inevitable  concessions  required  of  her  meticulous  sense 
of  form — had  convinced  her  of  its  cost.  But  she  was 
conscious,  after  Madame  von  Alfons  went,  that  it  was 
her  belief  in  the  importance  of  propriety  and  expediency 
which  convinced  her,  rather  than  her  feeling.  She  knew 
that  her  cousin's  reproaches  were  just.  But  whether 
it  were  the  result  of  her  impact  with  Cushing's  personality 
or  not,  she  was  for  the  first  time  aware  of  a  knowledge 


160    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

Mimi  did  not  possess.  It  was  a  knowledge  which  had 
cost  her  everything  and  yet,  as  she  at  moments  felt, 
which  had  yielded  her  the  richer  harvest  of  experience. 
Cushing's  imaginative  treatment  of  what  Madame  von 
Alfons  saw  as  so  plainly  practical  and  his  extension  of 
the  significances  of  human  contacts  were  what  made 
her  least  able  to  forget  him.  Evening  after  evening  she 
shut  her  eyes  and  dropped  her  book  to  her  lap,  with  a 
vision  of  him  taking  shape  between  her  thoughts  and 
her  closed  lids.  She  saw  not  only  what  he  must  at 
that  hour  be  doing — perhaps  at  his  club,  perhaps  in  the 
darkened  suspense  of  a  theatre,  with  the  light  striking 
along  the  long  tiers  of  faces  and  lingering  on  his,  per- 
haps bent  over  his  desk,  his  hand  moving  quickly  and 
methodically  over  page  after  page  and  his  eyes  raised, 
every  now  and  then,  to  set  themselves  on  the  fire.  She 
saw  too  the  wide  and  diverse  forms  his  need  of  her  must 
take.  Two  or  three  times  she  had  started  up  and  gone 
towards  the  telephone.  So  easy  and  immediate  a  means 
of  summoning  him  made  it  an  almost  irresistible  tempta- 
tion to  risk  another  talk  with  him — if,  indeed,  she  risked 
nothing  more.  But  the  press  of  the  recollection  of  her 
suffering  and  of  its  insidious  and  penetrating  forms 
was  still  too  close.  She  was  deterred  most  of  all  by  her 
remembrance  of  those  times  when  her  admission  that  she 
cared  for  him  had  been  spoilt  by  his  misunderstanding, 
and  by  her  fear  of  misunderstanding  in  her  turn. 

It  had  been  one  January  day,  when  she  turned  into 
a  print  shop  where  the  work  of  a  young  Parisian  etcher 
was  on  view,  that  she  had  come  face  to  face  with  Arthur 
Irish.  Her  grave  ease  had  dispelled  the  temporary  em- 
barrassment they  both  felt,  and  after  a  few  moments' 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     161 

hesitation  they  had  gone  in  together  and  she  had  spent  an 
hour  listening  to  his  quick,  incisive  comments  on  the 
prints.  He  had  then  walked  home  with  her,  and  a  few 
days  later  he  had  come  in  to  tea  and  had  brought  with 
him  a  dry-point  he  had  told  her  was  specially  good. 
She  remembered  this  occasion  of  their  meeting  vividly — 
even  more  so  than  the  numerous  ones  which  were  im- 
mediately to  follow.  Before  he  left  Irish  had  stood  for 
a  moment,  looking  around  him.  She  could  see  that,  in 
his  restlessly  vague  way,  he  was  registering  less  the 
garishness  of  her  sitting  room  than  the  way  in  which  she 
had  so  successfully  separated  herself  from  it.  The  plants 
in  the  window,  the  set  of  Montaigne  on  the  table,  a 
deep  golden-yellow  colour  and  with  the  peculiar  aroma  of 
an  old  French  library  still  hanging  about  the  brownish 
pages,  the  vase  of  violets  beside  her  chair  and  the  neat- 
ness of  the  folded  lace-work  at  her  elbow,  were  all  part 
of  the  fine  shadings  which  went  to  make  up  her  ex- 
quisiteness.  She  had  for  the  first  time  understood,  as  she 
watched  him,  with  her  smile,  that  the  more  he  penetrated 
her  quality  the  more  he  would  realise  that  it  was  as  good, 
in  its  way,  as  the  quality  of  his  best  Elzevirs. 

Before  he  left  he  had  turned  to  her  and  had  abruptly 
asked  if,  whenever  she  felt  like  it,  she  would  speak  to 
him  in  French.  He  had  always  admired,  he  declared,  her 
fidelity  to  English  and  her  omission,  except  at  rare  mo- 
ments, of  the  interpolated  phrase.  But  it  was  in  the 
freedom  and  glitter  of  her  own  language  that  he  was 
sure  he  should  best  know  her.  It  was  French  which 
supplied,  with  a  person  like  her,  the  necessary  elision 
between  thought  and  thought  and  which  expressed  her 
inimitable  compound  of  a  shrug  and  a  philosophy.  When 


162     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

he  heard  her  speak  in  French,  he  said  that  he  saw  all 
France  in  her  phrases.  He  saw  the  women  who  had  pro- 
duced her — the  perfection  with  which  they  had  paid  the 
penalty  of  class  for  its  privilege,  the  standard  which 
valued  an  hour  by  the  apt  or  witty  word  it  brought 
forth.  He  was  beginning  to  learn  that  her  outward  ex- 
pressions corresponded  to  inner  qualities ;  and  even  in 
inexact  English  he  declared  that  what  she  said  always 
seemed  to  contain,  beyond  its  meaning,  a  latent  life. 

Although  Madame  von  Alfons — perhaps  in  view  of 
her  own  situation — had  been  careful  how  she  stated  it, 
Anne-Marie  had  been  none  the  less  acutely  aware  of  both 
the  plainest  and  the  subtlest  comment  which  ran  in  and 
out  of  all  her  cousin  had  said  to  her.  No  woman,  in  that 
lady's  view,  left  her  husband  unless  she  had  what  Anne- 
Marie  could  imagine  her  calling  the  consolations  of  a 
reason.  In  some  obscure  way  she  had  felt,  in  retrospect, 
a  faintly  derisive  humiliation  that  Mimi  should  have  had 
to  reproach  her  with  only  a  lapse  of  judgment,  and  not 
with  one  of  those  lapses  of  conduct  the  imprudence  of 
which,  in  their  mutual  view,  was  sometimes  richly  re- 
paid. She  was  conscious  that  the  regulations  of  an 
American  life  had  inevitably  made  her  view  men  less 
personally.  Irish  was  the  first  man  she  had  known  whose 
cosmopolitanism  was  not  restricted  to  an  annual  few 
weeks  in  Paris  or  an  annual  visit  to  the  Riviera  or  the 
Scotch  moors;  and  if  he  had  not  her  own  principles  of 
conduct,  at  least  his  lack  of  the  usual  American  princi- 
ples was  definite. 

At  first,  in  the  hours  they  more  and  more  frequently 
spent  together,  she  had  had  the  sense  of  his  contradictions 
and  of  his  lack  of  the  force  of  simplicity.  It  was  these 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     163 

qualities  in  him  which  explained  to  her  the  fact  that  he 
had  cared  for  Mrs.  Herring.  Yet  whenever  she  thought 
of  the  strange  revelations  her  contact  with  Geraldine  had 
brought  her,  she  was  less  surprised  at  Irish's  caring  for 
her  than  at  Cushing's.  Irish's  vague  acceptance  of 
women,  without  any  particular  questions  concerning  them, 
reminded  her  that  at  times  even  the  best  taste  was  be- 
trayed into  admiring  the  specious.  She  was  still  less  im- 
pressed by  Mrs.  Herring's  generosity  than  by  the  glitter  of 
her  personal  charm.  Reaction  from  that  kind  of  charm, 
she  had  tartly  thought,  must  be  to  something  very  good, 
and  her  keen  perception  was  quick  to  follow  the  processes 
of  Irish's  readjustment.  But  she  too  was  making  her  re- 
adjustments. She  was  depending  on  Irish's  visits  more 
and  more  and  was  constantly  and  definitely  more  inter- 
ested in  him ;  and  as  she  watched  his  nascent  feeling  grow, 
the  fact  that  she  could  return  it  had  slowly  cast  a  light  into 
obscure  corners  of  her  consciousness.  Her  response  was 
all  the  deeper  because  she  felt  its  inevitable  logic.  This 
was  after  all  what  a  woman  must  reasonably  expect  to 
happen  to  her ;  whenever  the  force  of  this  conclusion  had 
come  to  her,  she  had  reverted,  in  her  thoughts,  to  her 
last  talk  with  her  husband.  To  have  affected  him  so 
visibly  had  restored  her  belief  in  her  powers.  She  remem- 
bered each  detail  of  the  tribute  which  Cushing's  glances 
had  paid  her,  and  the  way  his  attention  had  lingered 
on  the  movements  of  her  hands  and  the  turn  of  her  head. 
It  had  not  needed  Madame  von  Alfons  to  remind  her 
what  a  miscalculation  it  would  be  on  the  part  of  fate  if 
such  a  power  were  to  remain  useless.  The  restrictions 
of  the  rootless  life  she  must  lead,  once  her  separation 
from  Gushing  had  been  made  legal,  had  seemed  to  her 


164     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

more  and  more  intolerable.  She  saw  herself  living  in 
some  out-of-the-way  corner  of  France,  without  the 
sympathy  either  of  her  own  people  or  of  the  people 
whose  life  she  had  left  France  to  share.  Her  lustre 
would  dim  early,  since  there  would  be  no  appreciative 
eyes  to  see  it.  It  was  not  only  herself  whom  she  would 
immure,  but  the  long  line  of  women  whose  impulses 
had  been  transmitted  to  her.  She  knew  that  she  was  alive 
in  the  experiences  of  a  race  which  had  lived  its  lives 
fully;  yet  by  her  own  mismanagement  she  would  have 
to  admit  that  she  had  limited  herself  to  the  existence 
of  the  woman  who  is  marked  a  failure  by  the  absence 
of  the  established  signs  of  success.  The  afternoon  be- 
fore, when  the  barrier  to  which  she  and  Irish  had 
steadily  drawn  closer  fell  away  and  Irish  had  ad- 
mitted the  fact  of  his  feeling  and  shown  her  her  own 
in  the  colours  of  actuality,  she  had  found  herself  re- 
calling, with  a  sudden  reversion  of  thought,  Cushing's 
declaration  of  love  to  her.  It  was  characteristic  of  him 
that  he  should  have  trusted  to  the  look  he  had  sent  her, 
across  a  crowded  room,  to  convey  to  her  what  he  meant. 
Gushing  had  always  wanted  to  see  in  their  relation  the 
beauty  of  the  adventurous.  It  was  the  fundamental  dif- 
ference between  his  standpoint  and  hers,  she  had  thought, 
with  her  eyes  suffused  for  a  second  with  recollection, 
that  she  was  content  to  see  in  her  love  for  Irish  the 
beauty  of  the  logical  and  the  practical. 

She  was  aroused  by  the  sound  of  the  opening  of  a  door 
behind  her — not  one  of  the  main  doors,  but  a  door 
giving  access  to  some  inner  part  of  the  building — and  by 
a  breath  of  the  cool  rare  air  against  her  face. 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     165 

She  rose  hurriedly.  She  had  not  been  prepared  to  see 
any  one  but  Irish,  and  she  was  turning  to  move  further 
down  the  gallery  when  she  heard  her  name  called. 

"Mr.  Irish  begs,  Mrs.  Gushing,  that  you'll  come  to 
his  private  room.  He'll  join  you  there  instantly." 

"Ah!  In  that  case,  then "  She  broke  off,  with 

her  eyes  passing  quickly  over  the  black  and  white 
distinction  of  the  man  who  confronted  her.  Though 
his  English  had  the  perfection  of  ease,  she  noticed  at 
once  in  it  the  slightest  tinge  of  French. 

"It  has  been  unfortunate  that  Mr.  Irish  had  to  see 
a  gentleman  on  business  which  unexpectedly  prolonged 
itself.  He  hoped  to  be  free  long  before  you  came. 
They're  just  saying  a  last  word  now,  at  the  outer 
door ;  and  if  you'll  be  good  enough  to  come  this  way " 

Anne-Marie  hesitated  and  then  bent  her  head.  "You 
are  Monsieur  de  Fresneuil  then;  Mr.  Irish  has  spoken 
to  me  of  you.  You  are  French — as  I  am." 

"Yes,  madame;  I  am  Mr.  Irish's  secretary." 

He  had  bowed  in  his  turn,  and  as  he  again  raised  his 
head  Anne-Marie  felt  her  attention  arrested  for  a  per- 
ceptible moment.  His  face  had  not  changed,  but  its 
reserve  seemed  to  her  now  only  the  mask  of  a  quickly 
shifting  intelligence.  The  inner  recognitions  of  his  look 
passed  before  her  as  rapidly  but  as  vividly  as  a  light 
passing  through  a  darkened  room.  She  was  astonished 
to  feel  that  the  colour  rose  and  trembled  in  her  cheeks. 
It  was  not  only  that,  in  this  brief  instant,  she  felt  for 
the  first  time  the  equivocation  of  her  presence  here,  but 
that  she  was  conscious  of  some  sensitiveness,  in  her  com- 
panion, to  which  her  own  sensitiveness  instinctively  re- 
sponded. Fresneuil  merely  turned,  however,  after  an- 


166    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

other  quick  look  at  her,  to  the  door  by  which  he  had 
entered.  "Mr.  Irish  must  be  free  now,  madame,  if  you 
will  come  this  way." 

XVII 

"¥  ^  THEN  she  had  parted  from  him,  the  day  before, 
V  V  Anne-Marie  had  already  begun  to  understand 
how  completely  the  past  weeks  had  transfigured  Irish  for 
her.  When  she  confronted  him  now,  with  the  quiet  in- 
timacy of  his  inner  room,  whose  long  windows  were  open 
to  the  fresh  spring  air,  drawing  around  them  a  circle 
of  privacy,  she  felt  her  own  subjugation  to  the 
change.  His  thin  shoulders,  his  quizzical  eyes  and  the 
blend  of  idleness  and  energy  she  had  learned  to  couple 
with  him  had  gradually  assumed  their  special  charm. 
Her  intuition  was  keenly  at  work.  She  had  long  since 
recognised  that  the  way  to  stimulate  his  own  interest, 
in  return,  was  gradually  to  let  him  see  more  and  more 
of  the  inner  qualities  which  composed  her.  She  knew 
that  the  fortunate  coincidences  of  nature  and  taste  be- 
tween them  were  obvious.  But  it  was  her  instinct  to  go 
deeper,  and  already  she  found  herself  planning  her  re- 
sponses and  the  ways  in  which  she  could  elaborate  their 
happiness. 

Irish  had  begun  by  telling  her  how  many  hours  he 
had  spent  here,  trying  vainly  to  explain  to  himself  the 
spell  which  he  felt  more  and  more  strongly  upon  him. 
"I  used  to  come  here  as  soon  as  I  left  you.  No  one 
ever  sees  this  room — I  keep  it  for  myself.  The  count- 
less times  I've  fancied  you  standing  against  that  screen — 
do  you  see?  And  I  used  to  imagine  the  way  the  velvets 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     167 

and  the  cartoons  would  make  your  eyes  widen  and  soften, 
the  way  they  do  when  you're  pleased.  Yet  I  made  up  my 
mind  not  to  bring  you  here  until  I  knew  that  you  too 
cared,  until  I  had  the  chance  to  make  you  forget  the 
unhappinesses  you  must  have  been  through." 

She  faced  him  tremulously  for  a  moment  and  then 
made  a  wide  gesture.  "There !  I  have  forgotten !  Ah, 
what  life  is!  What  a  mystery — and  what  a  struggle! 
Je  vous  assure,  mon  ami,  que  la  mienne  n'a  pas  ete  bien 
gaie!"  She  paused,  arrested  by  the  odd  sense  of  the 
contrast  between  Irish's  sympathy  with  her  French  and 
Cushing's  intolerance  of  it. 

"Do  you  think  it's  been  easy  to  know  that,  when  I 
felt  the  way  I've  felt?"  Irish  bent  forward,  from  the 
low  seat  he  had  taken  beside  her,  and  held  both  her  hands. 
"We'll  go  slowly — we  must  think.  It's  that  which  made 
me  keep  you  waiting  just  now.  I'd  sent  for  my  lawyer, 
and  I  put  it  just  that  way  to  him — how  slowly  we'd 
have  to  go  and  how  thoroughly  we'd  have  to  think." 

She  drew  back  and  straightened  in  her  chair.  "How 

slowly  we  go !  But  I  do  not  understand!"  Her 

lightest  gaiety  tinged  her  smile.  "Surely,  my  dear,  after 
the  place  at  which  we  have  already  arrived,  it  does  not 
very  much  matter  how  we  continue!" 

"It  matters  this  much — that  I'll  have  nothing  with 
Gushing  but  fair  play.  There'll  have  to  be  a  divorce." 

"Yes ;  it  is  of  course  inevitable  that  my  husband  must 
divorce  me.  He  is  scarcely  a  person  to  lend  himself  to 
concessions  and  arrangements.  But  he  will  conduct  it 
with  as  much  privacy  as  possible.  You  can  be  sure  of 
that." 


168    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"I  am  sure  of  it.  Griffiths  will  see  him,  or  see  whoever 
acts  for  him,  and  put  it  to  him  frankly." 

The  puzzled  intensity  of  her  look  cleared.  "No,  but 
now  I  understand !  You  want  me  to  marry  you !" 

"Of  course,"  Irish  answered;  "we  must  marry." 
Anne-Marie  noticed  that  as  he  spoke  he  had  the  faintest 
resemblance  to  her  husband — enough  to  remind  her,  for 
a  brief  instant,  that  he  too  came  of  this  race  whose  clas- 
sifications of  honour  were  so  difficult  because  they  were 
so  vague. 

She  looked  around  her  again,  as  if  the  reminder 
of  what  his  tastes  had  trained  him  to  would  give  her  an 
assurance  of  his  understanding.  "Listen  to  me,"  she  laid 
her  hand  lightly  on  his, — "it  is  better  that  we  should  make 
it  clear.  I  shall  never  marry  you.  I  do  not  want  to  marry 
you." 

Irish  flushed,  and  again  she  heard  in  his  tone  some- 
thing like  Cushing's.  "You're  young,  you  know.  I  can't 
be  enough  of  a  cad  to  let  you  make  an  irrevocable  mis- 
take. No,  no;  we  must  have  some  regard  for  conse- 
quences. They're  what  are  important,  if  one's  half 
decent.  I  know  that  you've  no  one  very  near  you  to 
consult  and  I,  since  my  mother's  death,  have  no  one 
either.  But  there  are  consequences,  none  the  less,  and 
specially  important  ones  where  a  person  like  you  is  con- 
cerned." 

She  watched  him  for  another  moment.  "But  you  your- 
self— you  do  not  want  to  marry." 

"I  want  to  do  what's  fair;  and  since  with  any  one 
of  your  sort,  that's  the  only  possible  thing  that's  fair " 

"Certain  conventionalities  are  infinitely  important,  of 
course  ;"  she  nodded  gravely.  "It  all  depends  on  what  one 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     169 

gains  by  sacrificing  them.  To  a  certain  extent  I  have 
sacrificed  them  already.  I  made  an  unfortunate  mar- 
riage; since  I  have  escaped  from  it — passe!  We  need 
not  speak  of  it  again.  Now  I  have  you  and  all  that  you 
offer  me ;  the  question  is,"  she  gave  him  a  swift  smile,  "do 
not  let  us  say  anything  so  sad  as  how  I  am  to  keep  it, 
but  rather  how  I  am  most  successfully  to  accept  it." 

"That's  all  very  well."  He  answered  with  a  touch  of 
impatience.  "But  go  over  to  that  mirror  and  look  at 
yourself ;  and  then  think  of  the  disasters — the  cheap  dis- 
asters— such  irregularities  include.  You'll  scarcely  blame 
me,  then,  for  fearing  them  for  you  and  for  insisting  that 
before  we  face  a  scandal,  we  face  the  consequences. 
Ah,  Anne-Marie,  you're  the  rarest  of  the  rare,  you're 
a  princess ;  and  yet  you  expect  me  to  put  you  in  a  posi- 
tion like  that !  Life's  not  romantic  that  way,  nowadays." 
His  eyes  returned  her  smile,  from  behind  his  habitual 
glasses.  "It's  merely  sordid." 

She  answered  instantly.  "Life,  my  dear,  depends  on 
the  person  who  lives  it."  She  gave  another  long  look 
around  the  room  and  at  its  evident  betrayals  of  Irish's 
inner  needs — the  rarity  of  its  beauty,  the  careful  arrange- 
ments for  his  comfort,  the  air  of  completeness  which 
reached  an  almost  unnatural  perfection.  Then,  with  her 
face  set  in  an  expression  of  decision,  she  turned  back 
to  him.  "I  know.  I  can  do  it." 

"You  can  carry  it  off?  Of  that  there's  little  doubt, 
so  far  as  I'm  concerned!  The  question  is  whether  you 
can  carry  it  off  with  other  people." 

She  waited  again,  as  if  to  convince  him  how  thoroughly 
she  weighed  her  reply.  "Yes.  I  can  carry  it  off  with 
you  so  well  that  you  won't  mind  that  I  don't  carry  it  off 


170    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

with  other  people.     Other  people!     Ah,  what  they  cost 
one!" 

"Do  you  mean  in  their  enmity — in  their  antipathy?" 
"I  mean  in  one's  vast  sense  of  the  importance  of  their 
good  opinion."  She  sighed.  "I  value  it  exceedingly ;  but 
I  must  let  it  go ;  and  because,  as  I  tell  you,  I  have  more 
to  gain  by  losing  it.  And  when  I  have  the  world  to 
gain !"  She  gave  him  for  a  moment  the  light  soft- 
ness of  her  glance.  "My  poor  friend,  you  must  not 
lose  your  head.  Or  rather  it  is  I  who  must  keep  it  for 
you.  I  know  very  well  how  it  is.  You  do  not  want  to 
marry,  and  of  all  mistakes  you  could  make  the  greatest 
would  be  to  marry  me.  It  is  not  your  genre,  it  is 
not  you.  You  do  not  want  a  family;  ah,  it  is  a  little 
disappointing  of  you,  but  you  do  not.  You  want  to  spend 
your  life  in  the  pursuit  of  your  tastes.  You  have  said 
so  to  me  before  now — yes,  you  remember?  The  con- 
vention of  marriage  is  unsuited  to  you;  and  I,  in  this 
instance,  should  be  the  one  to  pay  the  penalty  of  its  be- 
ing unsuitable.  One  cannot  so  lightly  disregard  a  man's 
character.  That — that  is  regard  for  consequences,  if  you 
like!" 

Irish  watched  her  in  silence.  Underneath  the  quick 
curiosity  of  his  face  and  the  even  touch  with  which  his 
hand  continued  to  stroke  hers,  she  seemed  to  see  him 
turn  over  the  idea.  She  knew  he  had  the  unexpected  and 
surprising  conventionalities  of  a  man  whose  defiance  of 
opinion  is  acquired  rather  than  natural  and  whose  very 
originalities  are  hampered  by  a  touch  of  shyness.  He  was 
evidently  making  the  mental  admission  that  he  dealt,  after 
all,  with  a  person  in  whom  it  was  a  traditional  habit  to 
manage  such  situations  with  the  highest  hand.  Once  he 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     171 

had  granted  the  necessity  of  yielding  to  her,  she  knew  too 
that  all  his  training  would  show  him  what  the  felicity  of 
their  future  must  be.  "Well,  after  all,"  he  broke  out — 
"oh,  I'm  arguing  against  myself,  I  know,  but  as  if  con- 
sequences matter!" 

She  smiled.  "But  they  matter  exceedingly !  Only  your 
kind  of  consequences  are  not  as  wise  as  mine.  I  see 
the  obvious  difficulties — the  fact,  for  instance,  that  if  we 
do  or  do  not  marry  our  friends  will  be  equally  scandal- 
ised. It  is  more  important,  I  think,  that  we  should  make 
it  all  a  success.  No,"  she  grew  grave,  "what  would 
our  marriage  be?  A  marriage  of  love,  but  not  a  marriage 
of  reason.  We  have  between  us  none  of  the  qualities  to 
make  it  a  success.  I,  you  see — I  know." 

"What  do  you  mean  ?  You  mean  that  your  own  experi- 
ence has  taught  you ?" 

"Exactly.  My  own  experience  has  taught  me."  The 
fine  muscles  of  her  face  quivered  slightly.  "But  if  you 
want  me  to  share  as  much  of  your  life  as  I  can  share — 
if  you  will  give  me,  and  let  me  give  you,  all  the  happi- 
ness we  can  exchange" — it  seemed  to  Irish  that  she  put 
into  it  the  perfect  mixture  of  pride  and  generosity — "that, 
I  will  consent  to." 

"But  we  can't  openly  admit,  my  dear,  that  we're  de- 
fying all  rules !" 

Her  shoulders  rose.  "It  will  matter  very  little  what 
we  admit.  All  we  can  be  sure  of  is  that  we  shall  not 
be  in  a  position  to  deny.  Ah,  I  can  foresee  it.  If  I  live  in 
a  house  in  which  you  more  or  less  live,  if  your  money 
pays  for  what  I  have — we  may  get  a  few  people  to 
think  we  are  conventionally  acceptable,  but  they  will  be 
very  few.  My  point  is,  voyez  vous,  that  it  really  does 


172     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

not  matter  whether  I  am  conventionally  acceptable  or 
not." 

"You  think " 

She  put  an  end  to  his  uncertainty  with  her  gesture  of 
definite  decision.  "I  think  I  can  judge  myself  by  a 
standard  which  is  more  relentless  than  most  people's 
standards.  And  that  will  show  me  that  I  am  disgraced." 

"Yet  you'll  do  it?" 

"Yet  I  shall  do  it.  Because  I  prefer  to  do  it.  I  have 
learned."  Her  wit  lit  her  eyes  for  a  second.  "I  can- 
not understand  you  American  men,  and  it  seems  to  me 
that  I  may  make  fewer  mistakes  if  I  do  it  this  way." 


XVIII 

CUSHING  scarcely  knew  how  often,  in  the  past 
months,  his  most  sensitive  memories  had  stirred. 
In  the  first  weeks  after  his  parting  with  his  wife  had 
been  made  definite  he  had  been  conscious  of  an  increas- 
ing stricture  in  his  ideas  and  in  his  habits — the  inevitable 
penalty,  he  supposed,  of  his  resolve  to  maintain  an  atti- 
tude in  which  there  was  no  tinge  of  emotionalism.  His 
loss  had  been  too  vital  for  him  not  to  have  made  vital 
readjustments.  Little  by  little  he  had  accepted  the 
inevitable  necessities  of  his  situation.  He  had  absorbed 
himself  in  his  work  and  later,  as  his  hold  grew  firmer,  he 
had  re-established  the  same  kind  of  life  he  had  led  be- 
fore his  marriage.  He  could  see  that  his  acceptance 
surprised  the  people  he  saw,  and  particularly  his  sister, 
more  than  any  refusal  could  possibly  have  surprised 
them.  They  did  not  know,  he  reflected,  that  to  uproot 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     173 

the  inmost  growths  of  one's  sentiment  and  one's  pride 
left  no  choice  but  that  of  the  same  fundamental  recon- 
struction one  made  after  a  death. 

Yet  the  fact  that  Anne-Marie  was  still  so  integral  a 
part  of  the  fibre  which  wove  his  days  was  suddenly  clear 
to  him  when,  one  afternoon  towards  the  end  of  May, 
he  found  on  his  hall  table  a  letter  addressed  to  him 
in  her  hand.  Like  most  men  of  his  type  of  training,  he 
had  his  moments  of  entire  and  unreasoning  capitulation 
to  feeling;  and  after  he  had  carried  the  letter  upstairs 
and  shut  himself  in  his  room  with  it,  he  seemed  to  see 
extended  before  him  again  the  greatest  perspectives. 
Even  when  he  had  been  conscious  only  of  the  pain  of 
what  had  passed  between  him  and  his  wife,  the  pres- 
sure of  her  influence  had  been  constant  and  discernible. 
Now  it  flared  up  with  the  accumulated  vitality  of  a  force 
which  has  gathered  during  a  long  period  of  inaction. 

He  sat  turning  the  envelope  over  and  over,  smiling 
at  his  thought  that  it  was  an  inevitable  quality  of  any 
message  from  her  that  it  suggested  something  pressing 
and  secret.  Her  touch  upon  the  paper  infused  it  with 
some  of  her  charm  and  in  the  few  strokes  of  her  pen 
there  was  an  indication  of  her  particularity.  It  might 
be  his  own  fatuity  that  made  him  yield  to  the  spell. 
But  he  found  himself  admitting  that,  with  none  of  the 
impulsiveness  of  youth  to  help  him,  he  had  after  all  for- 
gotten many  of  the  difficulties  of  living  with  her — that, 
however  unreliable  she  had  at  times  proved  herself,  in 
their  last  talk  she  had  shown  not  only  the  clearest  pre- 
cision of  judgment  but  also  a  vital  feeling.  His  smile 
deepened.  He  could  not  deny  the  touch  of  incompetence 
in  the  flourishes  of  her  ornate  writing.  His  humour  had 


174     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

to  grant  that  what  affected  him  so  was  the  fact  that  her 
thin,  quick  hands  had  rested  on  the  paper  rather  than 
anything  the  letter  might  say  to  him. 

"Dear  Paul,"  her  note  ran,  "I  need  to  see  you.  I 
should  not  do  so  unless  it  were  pressing  and  necessary; 
believe  me,  this  is  now  the  case.  Will  you  come  to- 
morrow to  meet  me  in  the  park?  There  is  a  bench  to 
the  right  of  the  end  of  the  long  alley  of  trees.  I  shall 
be  there  between  half  past  five  and  six.  Anne-Marie." 

He  knew  that  if  the  letter  had  been  written  by  any 
one  else,  so  reasonable  and  practical  a  request  would  have 
had  nothing  more  than  its  face  value.  But  it  was  his 
wife's  special  quality  that,  intermixed  with  her  sense  of 
the  reasonable  and  practical,  there  was  the  stirring  touch 
of  drama.  The  next  afternoon,  as  he  walked  down  the 
alley  to  the  place  she  had  named,  and  though  he  felt 
faintly  sarcastic  at  the  idea  that  he  should  have  remained 
so  sensitive,  his  expectation  was  so  keen  that  his  blood 
quickened  in  its  flow.  It  had  been  a  clear  radiant  day, 
merging  now  into  a  dusk  so  full  of  light  and  with  such 
a  kindled  sky  that  there  was  scarcely  twilight  and  some 
of  the  brilliancy  of  the  afternoon  met  the  first  lamps  of 
the  evening.  The  alley  was  empty,  and  almost  at  once 
he  made  out  Anne-Marie  on  the  seat  she  had  named.  One 
of  her  arms  was  on  the  back  of  the  bench  and  her  chin 
rested  on  her  hand;  and  as  he  drew  nearer  he  could 
presently  see  that  her  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  western  sky 
and  on  the  glow  which  hung  back  of  the  irregular  mass 
of  distant  buildings. 

The  sight  of  her  seemed  to  cancel  the  months  since 
they  had  parted  and  his  inevitable  sense  of  her  strange- 
ness. She  had  been  specially  insistent  that  the  arrange- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     175 

ments  of  their  separation  should  pass  through  his  lawyer. 
He  remembered  the  hurried  line  she  had  sent  him,  one 
day  when  he  had  asked  her  to  talk  with  him  about  the 
question  of  her  income,  scrawled  on  the  back  of  a  legal 
paper.  "Do  not  ask  me  to  see  you  about  such  a  thing. 
We  have  been  both  too  happy  and  too  sad  together  to 
meet  because  of  the  details  of  such  a  traffic."  His  recol- 
lection of  her,  therefore,  had  remained  the  poignant  one 
of  what  had  passed  between  them  when  she  came  to  him 
to  acknowledge  her  error;  and  when  he  was  almost  be- 
side her  and  saw  her  rouse  herself  from  whatever  vigil 
her  thoughts  were  keeping,  what  instantly  struck  him 
was  the  difference  between  her  bearing  now  and  her 
bearing  the  last  time  they  had  met.  From  the  Anne- 
Marie  who  had  been  grave  and  resigned,  with  her  atten- 
tion set  so  persistently  on  large  questions,  to  the  person 
who  now  raised  her  eyes  speechlessly  to  his,  there  was  a 
surprising  change. 

For  the  first  time  he  wondered  keenly  what  she  had 
been  doing  and  feeling.  It  had  seemed  part  of  the  con- 
sideration he  owed  her  that  he  should  have  tried,  since 
their  separation,  to  refrain  from  thinking  of  her  with  any 
of  the  pettinesses  of  jealousy  and  recrimination.  He  had 
schooled  himself  to  separate  his  love  from  their  failure, 
to  realise  that  however  plainly  impossible  a  continuance 
of  their  tie  had  been  he  would  always  feel  for  her  a 
tenderness  of  sentiment  he  could  feel  for  no  one  else. 
Now  all  the  various  issues  with  which,  in  the  interval, 
she  herself  might  have  been  occupied,  rose  vividly  be- 
fore him.  It  was  typical  of  her,  he  thought,  that  he 
should  receive  this  impression  because  of  the  way  in 
which  she  looked.  Her  subtlety  of  appearance  had  never 


176     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

been  more  striking  and  her  beauty  more  disturbing.  She 
wore  a  dress  which  was  soft  and  dark  and  a  hat  covered 
with  a  mass  of  green  feathers ;  and  around  the  top  of  her 
throat,  half  hidden  by  her  boa,  he  caught  the  gleam  of 
a  band  of  diamonds.  The  jewels  were  strange  to  him. 
But  they  seemed  merely  a  part  of  her  bewildering  way 
of  so  composing  her  appearance  that  she  conveyed  her 
state  of  mind  by  what  she  had  on,  and  Gushing  was 
conscious  of  a  quick  amusement  at  the  aspect  of  intrigue 
which  her  looks  lent  to  their  meeting. 

"Ah,  Paul,  how  good  of  you  to  come!"  She  moved 
along  the  bench  to  make  room  for  him.  "You  under- 
stood— I  particularly  wanted  to  see  you."  Her  glance 
again  met  his.  "You  were  surprised?" 

"I'm  scarcely  surprised  at  anything  you  do;"  Gushing 
heard  that  his  tone  was  sardonic,  but  his  eyes  kept 
steadily  playing  over  the  renewed  freshness  of  her 
beauty.  "Oh,  I'll  admit  it  to  you !  Whenever  I  see  you, 
and  for  whatever  reason,  it's  a  pleasure  to  me  to  do  even 
that — merely  to  see  you." 

She  drew  a  quick  breath  and  hesitated,  irresolutely. 
"But  I  should  not  have  seen  you — I  should  not  have 
put  either  you  or  myself  through  the  difficulties  of  our 
meeting,  unless  I  had  had  a  definite  reason  for  doing  so. 
You  speak  of  the  pleasure  of  seeing  me ;  there  are  some 
pleasures  one  is  unwise  to  permit  one's  self.  You  know 
how  I  feel  about  the  indecencies  and  the  decencies  of 
such  a  situation.  Ah,"  she  threw  back  her  head,  and  as 
her  throat  turned  he  saw  the  size  of  the  diamonds  around 
it,  "and  you  have  been  so  good — so  quick  to  consider  my 
feelings !" 

"Then  it  isn't  that  I've  unexpectedly  failed  ?"  he  asked 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     177 

gravely.  He  had  turned,  on  the  bench,  to  watch  her  pro- 
file. "My  lawyer  had  my  instructions  to  try  in  every  way 
to  satisfy  you — to  fall  in,  as  well  as  he  could,  with  those 
ideas  of  yours  which — you'll  forgive  me? — are  from  a 
lawyer's  point  of  view  sometimes  indefinite.  No,"  he 
held  up  his  hand  to  arrest  her,  "don't  forget  that  it  was 
I  who  was  wrong.  I  had  no  business  to  let  you  in  for  so 
much  unhappiness.  I've  lost  the  sense  of  many  things,  in 
the  last  months,  but  I've  not  lost  the  sense  of  that." 

"You  have  suffered,"  she  said,  in  a  low  tone,  and  more 
to  herself  than  to  him.  "I  saw  it  when  last  we  met — 
I  see  it  now."  She  paused  and  then  broke  out  ir- 
relevantly: "But  that  is  what  is  so  marvellous!  What- 
ever you  do,  whatever  you  feel "  she  outlined  him 

with  a  wave  of  her  hand — "you  keep  yourself  intact. 
Allans,  I  have  always  said  it ;  you  have  a  real  personality. 
Yes!  And  now  concerning  what  I  have  to  say."  She 
waited  for  a  second  more,  with  her  eyes  on  the  grey- 
gloved  hand  which  held  his  stick.  Then,  with  that  mo- 
tion of  her  shoulders  which  stood  for  resignation,  she 
continued:  "Tenezl  You  will  perhaps  remember  a  talk 
we  had  at  the  time  of  our  marriage,  when  we  discussed 
the  future.  Yes?  But  what  a  life-time  ago  it  seems! 
I  said  to  you  then  that  I  believed  the  first  duty,  between 
a  man  and  a  woman,  was  consideration.  You  remember  ? 
And  I  do  not  feel,  you  must  understand,  that  the  con- 
sideration I  owe  you  has  altogether  ceased  now  that  we 
are  legally  separated." 

"Well?"  Gushing  asked;  he  was  aware  of  his  odd  in- 
ability to  consider,  in  what  she  had  said,  anything  beyond 
the  sudden  suspicion  which  her  pliant  flattery  had 
aroused  in  him. 


178     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

She  hurried  on.  "Ah,  if  you  knew  how  profoundly 
I  have  felt  for  you — how  profoundly  I  have  been  in- 
fluenced, in  my  desire  to  be  considerate,  by  your  beautiful 
consideration  of  me !  Come,  I  must  say  it.  When  I  left 
you  there  was  nothing — but  absolutely  less  than  nothing 
— in  my  own  situation  which  I  did  not  admit  to  you.  I 
asked  you  to  consent  to  our  separation  because  I  was 
convinced  it  was  best — because  of  nothing  more.  Now," 
her  hands  appealed  to  him,  "now,  very  recently,  things 
have  changed  for  me." 

"Changed  ?  I  don't  see ;  how  have  they  changed  ?  Do 
you  mean "  he  broke  his  question  in  two. 

"I  mean  that  the  circumstances  of  my  life  have 
changed.  I  mean  that  I  have  entered  into  a  new  relation- 
ship. Since  I  left  you  on  a  different  basis — and  since 
you  have  been  so  extraordinarily  kind — I  felt  it  right 
that  I  should  tell  you.  On  Saturday  I  am  leaving 
America,  and  I  am  leaving  it,"  she  spoke  clearly,  "with 
Mr.  Irish." 

A  moment's  silence  followed  her  words,  and  then  Cush- 
ing  heard  himself  say :  "So  that's  it !  Is  it  possible !" 

"You  are  surprised?"  she  asked.  "Ah,  but  of  course 
you  are  surprised!" 

He  turned  away  and  looked  at  the  trees  which  edged 
the  walk,  conscious  that  the  rush  of  his  thoughts  needed 
some  pause.  He  was  as  yet  aware  only  of  the  determina- 
tion that  no  inch  of  him  should  betray  what  he  felt.  At 
length  he  spoke. 

"Well,  things  do  surprise  one  when  they  come  like 
this.  Yet  the  only  thing  really  surprising,  I  suppose,  is 
the  fact  that  I  shouldn't  definitely  have  foreseen  it." 
He  waited  again.  "You  didn't  lie  to  me,  before?  This 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     179 

hasn't  gone  on  from  the  time  you  left  me  ?  It  wasn't 
your  reason  for  refusing  to  come  back  to  me?  I  re- 
member, then,  that  at  the  back  of  my  head  there  was 
something  I  couldn't  explain  and  which  I  thought  only  a 
part  of  what's  always  inexplicable  in  you.  Was  it  that? 
Was  it  Irish?" 

She  held  up  her  head,  with  her  familiar  motion.  "If 
it  had  been,  I  assure  you  that  you  should  have  known. 
Believe  me  or  not,  as  you  prefer,  but  I  am  incapable  of 
cheap  evasions." 

"And  you  think  that  you've  given  me  cause  to  accept 

your  assurances "  Gushing  paused.  He  was  vaguely 

aware  of  a  desire  not  to  have  the  words  of  their  inter- 
view on  a  par  with  its  facts  and  that  he  must  avoid,  as 
far  as  possible,  the  baseness  of  recrimination.  But  with 
the  passage  of  each  moment  his  jealousy  was  becoming 
more  intimate  and  the  various  elements  of  his  resentment 
— the  negation  of  the  past,  the  memory  of  Anne-Marie's 
accusation  of  him  and  of  her  accusation  of  Geraldine 
Herring  to  Irish  himself — less  under  his  control.  "Can't 
you  understand  that  you've  no  longer  the  right  to  ask  me 
to  believe  you  ?" 

The  coldness  of  her  manner  changed  suddenly  to  eager- 
ness and  she  bent  towards  him.  "Ah,  but  if  I  could  ever 
make  it  clear  to  you!  In  these  months  I  have  felt  all 
that  I  was  killing — all  that  not  I,  but  the  position  I  filled, 
represented  for  you.  I  have  remembered  all  you  wanted 
your  wife  to  be;  things  I  once  thought  impossible,  but 
which  now  seem  to  me  only  an  elaboration  of  your  pain." 

"It  seems  to  me  scarcely  permissible  that  you  should 
discuss  my  pain ;"  Gushing  considered  for  a  second ;  "and 
as  to  what  I  wanted  my  wife  to  be,  you'll  remember  just 


180     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

this:  you're  no  longer  my  affair,  but  you've  still  my 
name,  and  until  we're  divorced  you'll  outwardly  at  least 
respect  the  position  you  once  held.  I  won't  have  any 
open  scandal." 

Her  eagerness  lapsed.  "I  have  never  wanted  to  disre- 
gard what  I  owe  you — never.  That  is  why  I  am  here 
to-day;  ah,"  she  held  herself,  "but  if  I  had  not  come  it 
would  have  been  so  hideously  dishonest !" 

Gushing  was  aware  that  he  smiled,  as  if,  in  spite  of 
the  various  impulses  with  which  he  was  struggling,  he 
recognised  the  tone  she  took.  "I  might  have  known,  I 
suppose,  that  your  idea  of  honesty  begins  and  ends  there. 
Let's  be  frank  about  it.  You've  behaved  abominably — 
you  and  Irish  too.  You've  taken  advantage  of  the  free- 
dom my  consideration  gave  you.  If  you're  capable  of 
that,  you're  capable  of  anything.  I  think  there's  nothing 
more  to  say.  You'll  hear  from  my  lawyer  and  Irish  will 
hear  from  him,  and  what  has  to  pass  between  us  can  pass 
that  way.  Only  you'll  recollect :  until  our  divorce  is  set- 
tled, you'll  behave  with  some  decency  and  some  restraint." 
He  rose,  conscious  that  his  longing  to  end  the  matter 
had  reached  a  point  beyond  control. 

As  he  stood  in  front  of  her,  the  look  she  gave  him 
from  under  her  drooped  lashes  suffused  and  deepened 
and  she  raised  her  handkerchief  to  her  eyes.  The  gesture 
had  a  touch  of  her  usual  theatrics.  Such  a  situation  had 
its  excitement  for  every  woman,  he  supposed.  Yet  it 
affected  him,  and  he  paused. 

She  caught  the  break  in  his  obdurate  front  instantly, 
and  her  lip  quivered  in  response.  "Ah,  I  regret  it  all  so !" 
she  exclaimed,  in  a  low  tone;  "when  I  think  of  all  that 
has  existed  between  us "  She  touched  her  breast, 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     181 

with  a  quick  tragic  gesture.  "Does  it  mean  nothing  to 
you  that  I  too  have  suffered?" 

"Does  it  mean  nothing  to  you — I  can  only  repeat  it — 
that  you've  reached  a  point,"  his  irony  lit  his  face  again, 
"where  you're  rather  beyond  the  need  of  my  sympathy  ?" 

She  let  this  pass  in  silence  and,  turning  again,  she  fixed 
her  eyes  on  the  sky.  "What  it  has  been — to  see  one 
thing  die  and  another  born !  Ah,  what  a  wear  and  tear 
of  experience !  To  feel  myself  bound  to  you  by  so  much, 
and  yet  by  so  hopelessly  little ;  to  make  my  choice,  and  yet 
to  feel  its  happiness  was  built  on  things  which  were 
scarcely  cold,  scarcely  dead;  things  which  still,  in  the 
strangest  way,  could  tremble  with  life " 

She  broke  off.  Gushing  was  scarcely  aware  of  the  in- 
tensity with  which  his  eyes  followed  the  visible  passage, 
across  her  face,  of  what  she  said.  The  fluency  of  her 
disclosure  of  herself  seemed  to  have  summoned  before 
him  his  knowledge  of  her  infinite  intricacy — the  intricacy 
of  her  glances,  her  gestures,  her  powers — and  yet  of  the 
direct  simplicity  of  her  feeling. 

His  pain  suddenly  found  its  way  into  words.  "The 
only  thing  to  do  is  never  to  think  of  it;  it's  beyond 
thought." 

"Yes,  it  is  beyond  thought,"  she  returned  in  a  low 
tone;  then  with  a  quick  lift  of  her  eyes  she  added:  "I 
have  perhaps  no  right  to  tell  you  my  plans — no  more 
right  than  I  have  to  ask  you  yours.  If  you  knew  how 
I  have  wondered  what  you  would  do ;  whether  or  not  you 
would  marry,  since  people  here  do  remarry,  whether  or 
not  you  and  Mrs.  Herring " 

"I  and  Mrs.  Herring!     And  you  think  it's  so  easy  to 


182     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

reconstruct  that  one  can  plan  ahead  and  foresee  even 
one's  feelings?" 

"No,  I  know  that  with  you  it  is  not  easy — no  easier 
than  it  would  be  with  me;  but  undeniably  she  has  her 

own  personal  touch,  that  woman "  she  hesitated. 

"Well!  I,  at  least,  should  like  to  tell  you  what  I  intend 
not  to  do.  I  shall  not  marry  Mr.  Irish." 

In  spite  of  his  consciousness  that  it  might  be  another 
of  her  dishonesties,  it  was  instinctive  with  Gushing  to 
respond  with  a  quick  rise  of  his  blood.  "If  Irish  has  be- 
haved badly  to  you 

She  took  him  up  instantly.  "He  wants,  you  under- 
stand, to  marry  me.  Left  to  his  own  judgment  he  wishes 
and  prefers  it.  It  is  I  who  refuse." 

"And  it's  part  of  your  extremely  kind  consideration 
of  me  that  you're  to  go  off  with  him  and  not  to  marry 
him  ?"  broke  from  him. 

She  met  the  question  by  holding  her  head  higher  still, 
but  her  dignity  now  had  an  inimitable  sadness.  "You 
will  see  that  you  are  wrong,  if  you  consider  for  a  mo- 
ment. Mr.  Irish  and  I  go  away,  to  Europe,  and  I  never 
reappear.  I  change  my  name.  I  observe  every  precaution. 
You  divorce  me — you  name  Mr.  Irish.  Very  well.  You 
are  in  the  right ;  he — ah,  he  will  somehow  be  in  the  right 
too.  Men's  reputations  survive  these  things.  I  assure 
you  that  the  scandal  is  my  affair." 

Gushing  was  aware  that  the  strangest  thing  in  the  con- 
flict of  his  feelings  was  his  belief  in  what  she  had  just 
said.  She  had  lied  in  her  actions,  and  yet  the  fact  re- 
mained that  so  far  as  she  herself  went  he  could  count 
on  her  to  recognise  the  truth.  He  had  never  felt  more 
keenly  her  complete  lack  of  any  self-deception,  her 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     183 

recognition  of  cost  as  cost,  and  for  a  moment  it  made 
even  her  dishonesty  valuable. 

He  considered  what  he  should  say,  and  as  he  put  his 
next  question  he  was  conscious  that  he  did  so  with  trust 
in  the  sincerity  of  her  answer.  "And  why  do  you  choose 
to  do  it  in  this  way?" 

She  responded  instantly.  "That  is  a  matter  which  I 
alone  had  to  judge.  I  determined  it  according  to  char- 
acter and  to  circumstance — the  way  one  determines  those 
things.  I  do  not  deny  it:  I  understand  that  I  sink,  I 
leave  my  class  and  my  position  as  a  woman  of  honour. 
I  may  disguise  it  from  other  people,  but  I  cannot  dis- 
guise it  from  myself.  As  you  say,  I  am  done  for."  She 
ended  with  a  gesture  which  closed  the  question.  "I  pre- 
fer to  be  done  for." 

"And  you're  happy?"  The  words  escaped  Gushing  be- 
fore he  knew  it. 

"Ah,  yes — very  happy,"  she  said,  and  her  face  softened, 
as  if  the  shadow  of  a  secret  feeling  had  passed  over  it. 

He  felt  again  a  dim  sense  of  gratitude  for  her  frank- 
ness. She  did  not  attempt  to  deny  what  would  so  soon 
repossess  and  absorb  her.  As  his  eyes  passed  in  quick 
succession  over  points  in  her  loveliness  which  he  so  in- 
timately knew,  he  understood  that  the  fact  that  she  had 
been  so  dishonest  and  yet  so  frank  was  the  cause  of  his 
deepest  grief.  She  had  lost  to  him  not  herself  but  parts 
of  herself,  and  she  left  him  with  the  pain  of  a  devotion 
only  half  betrayed  and  satirised.  His  defensive  instinct 
was  still  alive,  and  between  him  and  the  cool  shadowy 
masses  of  the  trees  around  them  there  seemed  to  rise 
all  the  dangers  which  awaited  a  creature  so  highly  and 
finely  susceptive.  If  he  could  either  wholly  condemn 


184    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

her  or  keep  the  integrity  of  her  image  as  a  lost  vision — 
that,  he  thought,  would  have  left  him  something  to  live 
on;  whereas  now  he  must  couple  her  deception  with  her 
truth — he  must  understand  that  she  had  been  dignified, 
in  spite  of  the  indignity  of  the  diamonds  around  her 
throat.  He  gave  her  a  final  look  and  then,  without 
further  words,  he  turned  away. 


XIX 

IT  had  been  arranged  that  Irish  and  Anne-Marie 
should  go  at  once  to  England.  The  scandal  which 
would  obviously  follow  them  would  make  any  stay  in 
France,  where  they  must  meet  Anne-Marie's  relatives,  too 
difficult  for  the  present,  and  Irish  had  a  house  in  London 
waiting  to  receive  them.  It  was  in  these  hurried  days 
of  planning  that  Anne-Marie  showed  him  that  in  spite 
of  her  youth  and  of  a  certain  proud  innocence  she  had 
the  technique  of  the  situation  to  incredible  perfection. 
Irish  was  at  a  point  of  enthusiasm  which  ignored  com- 
ment; yet  she  did  not  give  him  a  sense  of  a  lesser  en- 
thusiasm in  her  insistence  that  it  would  be  absurd  not  to 
respect  and  consider  it.  Her  shrewd  recognition  of  what 
confronted  them  seemed  to  have  made  their  relation  more 
serious,  by  computing  carefully  the  elements  which  com- 
posed it ;  and  at  the  same  time  he  was  made  aware  that, 
if  she  knew  how  to  make  these  points,  she  also  knew  how 
completely  to  yield  them. 

It  was  she  who  said  that  they  must  not  travel  on  the 
same  ship.  She  had  decided  to  call  herself  Madame 
du  Chastel,  which  would  somewhat  conceal  her  identity; 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     185 

but  it  was  undeniable  that  he  could  not  conceal  his. 
Gushing  was  taking  immediate  steps  to  divorce  her  and 
he  had  declared  his  intention  of  introducing  Irish's  name 
into  his  suit.  She  insisted  that  Irish  must  remember 
that  though  these  things  did  not  now  matter  for  her — 
since  her  position  had  become  so  frankly  a  negative  one 
— they  continued  to  matter  for  him.  A  man  could  defy 
the  world,  as  she  put  it,  but  he  could  not  disregard  it. 
But  when  he  had  protested  too  vigorously  against  a 
separation  of  even  a  week,  she  had  given  way;  and 
Irish  himself  was  aware  that  she  had  contrived  that  both 
her  objection  and  her  surrender  to  his  objection  should 
transform  the  trivial  incident  into  a  stimulant  of  their 
feeling. 

Their  last  days  in  New  York  were  necessarily  difficult. 
There  was  the  question  of  a  lawyer  for  Irish  and  of  an- 
other for  her,  and  the  details  of  how  she  was  to  respond 
to  Cushing's  action  had  to  be  considered.  Yet  the  fact 
that  she  considered  them  so  little  astonished  Irish.  She 
would  never  be  guilty,  she  said,  of  the  bad  taste  of  bene- 
fitting  by  her  legal  freedom  in  order  to  marry  again; 
and  it  was  futile  for  her  to  insist  on  this  point  and  that 
when  she  realised,  so  far  more  plainly  than  he  and  the 
lawyers,  all  that  she  was  outraging.  Irish  began  to 
understand  that  her  audacities  of  conduct  were  the  real 
ones.  Once  she  had  acceded  to  her  own  dishonour,  and 
always  with  the  sharpest  sense  of  what  it  involved,  she 
did  so  with  what  he  could  only  describe — with  an  inward 
smile — as  an  elegant  fatalism.  She  declared  that  it  was 
part  of  her  response  to  him  that  she  should  throw  her 
good  name  to  the  winds  and  abandon  the  last  fictitious 
appearance  of  decency.  But  none  the  less  he  was  con- 


186     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

stantly  aware  of  the  hard  play  of  intellect  in  her,  and  he 
was  learning  more  and  more  that  this  combination  of 
her  intelligence  with  her  loveliness  was  the  most  powerful 
of  her  appeals. 

It  was  an  added  proof  of  her  manipulation  that,  in 
spite  of  the  height  of  happiness  to  which  she  carried 
him,  she  should  also  admit  her  practical  sense.  Irish 
discovered  that  the  effect  of  their  feeling  upon  her 
was  distinctly  different  from  its  effect  upon  him.  Where 
he  insisted  that,  in  the  sentimental  aspect  of  their 
case,  they  had  been  destined  for  each  other,  she  lightly 
asserted  that  all  they  need  trouble  about  was  the  fortunate 
conjunction  between  her  and  his  needs.  She  smiled  at 
his  claim  that  he  must  always  have  loved  her.  But  she 
did  not  disregard  the  fact  that  he  had  always  thought  her 
extraordinary,  and  she  admitted  that  for  him  the  ex- 
traordinary, in  a  rare  type,  was  something  to  be  ulti- 
mately procured.  For  that  matter,  she  intended  to  disre- 
gard nothing.  It  was  part  of  her  elision  between  the 
imaginative  and  the  practical  to  disregard  nothing.  The 
combination  of  so  much  fineness  with  so  much  frank- 
ness seemed  to  Irish  to  bring  them  closer  and  yet  to 
remove  all  the  vulgarities  of  their  propinquity.  He  saw 
that  for  the  first  time  such  a  relation  would  have  an 
effect  on  his  character.  He  had  never  been  used  to 
the  application  of  an  intellectual  process  to  such  subjects, 
and  he  found  that  Anne-Marie  could  not  only  make  her 
own  clear  conclusions,  but  that  in  her  wonderful  and  yet 
simple  way  she  arranged  his  next  conclusion  for  him. 
This  constant  sense  of  her  understanding  in  him  some- 
thing a  little  ahead  of  what  he  understood  in  himself,  and 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     187 

his  own  contentment  with  the  result,  had  proved  to  him 
that  she  never  misplaced  her  quick  touches. 

On  their  last  afternoon  at  sea  she  had  been  lying  back 
in  her  chair,  listening  to  Irish's  instructions  to  his  secre- 
tary and  thinking,  as  she  listened,  that  the  intricacies  of 
her  problem  were  gaining  precision  and  continuity  very 
much  as  the  dim  coast,  as  they  approached,  formed  gradu- 
ally into  definite  lines  and  masses. 

In  the  midst  of  their  agitated  days  in  New  York  she 
had  paused  at  the  outer  aspects  of  this  problem  only  long 
enough  to  be  conscious  of  her  gratitude  that  Irish  was 
singularly  independent  and  that  there  were  so  few  difficult 
adjustments  to  make  between  her  and  his  already  estab- 
lished relationships.  His  secretary  was  the  only  member 
of  his  household,  and  it  was  plain  that  his  impeccable 
formality  would  protect  her  no  less  than  his  Gallic  sense 
of  both  the  distance  and  the  dignity  of  his  own  subordi- 
nate position.  It  had  been  in  the  necessarily  closer  inti- 
macy of  the  days  on  shipboard  that  she  had  first  begun  to 
suspect  the  peculiar  qualities  of  his  influence  with  Irish. 

In  the  first  days  of  her  knowledge  of  Claude  de  Fres- 
neuil  she  had  wondered  if  the  acquisition  of  a  person  so 
perfectly  suited  for  the  part  he  enacted  was  not  the  high- 
est expression  of  Irish's  facility  for  the  gratification  of 
every  whim.  It  was  obvious  that  their  regard  had  orig- 
inally been  founded  on  Irish's  difficulty  in  securing,  even 
at  a  fantastic  salary,  the  services  of  a  person  who  had 
dealt  so  freely  in  the  best  that  he  had  his  own  independ- 
ence. Irish  had  sketched  to  her  the  history  of  the  loss  of 
Fresneuil's  fortune  and  of  his  consequently  turning  to 
an  occupation  for  which  his  traditions  of  distinction  and 


188    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

eclecticism  had  so  happily  fitted  him.  Fresneuil,  as  he 
put  it  to  her,  was  all  flair,  all  his  amazing  nose ;  he  had  the 
sharpest  sense  of  form  and  texture,  the  surest  divina- 
tion of  the  difference  between  a  repetition  and  a  creation. 
The  collections  were  founded  on  him,  and  it  had  been 
Fresneuil,  Irish  said,  from  whom  he  himself  had  learned 
something  far  rarer  than  any  mere  correctness  of  ac- 
ceptance or  refusal. 

Fresneuil  himself  had  treated  her  from  the  first  with 
a  consideration  so  evidently  impervious  that  Anne-Marie 
was  assured  of  his  sense  of  her  own  difference  and  dis- 
tinction. But  she  was  also  aware  that  such  keenness 
could  not  stop  suddenly  short  at  the  personal,  and  that 
a  man  who  had  so  learned  to  discover  and  test  quality 
must  have  for  human  nature  his  premises  and  conclu- 
sions. His  presence  was  a  constant  reminder  of  the  fact 
that  he  had  not  only  his  private  knowledge  and  his  private 
opinions,  but  of  that  part  of  Irish's  life  for  which  Fres- 
neuil himself  so  palpably  stood.  As  she  leaned  back,  with 
her  eyes  on  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  grey  sea,  and  listened 
to  the  two  men  talk,  the  practical  importance  of  the  in- 
fluences of  Irish's  tastes  had  never  struck  her  more  forci- 
bly. Her  quick  wit  divined  that  even  a  discussion  of  what 
he  had  secured  and  what  he  was  hoping  to  secure  gave 
him  satisfaction.  He  was  constantly  interchanging  ob- 
jects of  his  collection  between  his  London  house  and  his 
New  York  library,  and  arranging  for  their  transportation 
between  exhibitions ;  and  though  he  turned  to  her  every 
now  and  then,  with  a  quick  smile,  she  caught  in  his  face 
the  reflection  of  a  pleasure  definitely  separated  from  her. 

"And  I  ?"  she  asked,  with  a  glance  of  light  uncertainty, 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     189 

as  Fresneuil  left  them  and  Irish  sank  back  in  his  chair; 
"I  also  go  to  the  Stratton  street  house  ?" 

"You  mean  that  you're  to  be  placed — to  be  put  in  a 
case  or  in  a  frame?  And  that's,"  he  smiled,  "what  you 
think  we've  come  away  for — run  away  for  ?" 

She  held  persistently  to  her  point. 

"No,  I  understand  it.  I  am  merely  another  form  of 
your  feeling  for  the  best ;  but,  my  dear,  I  am  proud  to  be ! 
You  do  not  run  the  risk  of  most  of  those  people  Id-bas — 
of  imaginative  people  whose  imaginations  have  not  yet 
been  sufficiently  educated.  You  really  know.  No,  it  is 
not  you  who  are  at  my  feet;  it  is  I  who  am  at  yours. 
Voyons,  could  I  expect  it  to  be  otherwise  when  you  are 
more  than  known — you  are  famous  ?  But  it  would  be  ab- 
surd— it  would  be  losing  half  the  pleasure  your  character 
gives  me — if  I  ceased  to  remember  that  my  charm  for  you 
is  very  much  the  same  as  the  charm  of  a  picture  or  a  good 
series  of  tapestries!"  She  glanced  at  Fresneuil,  who 
stood  leaning  on  the  rail  a  few  yards  away,  and  then  gave 
Irish  one  of  her  intimate  looks.  "But  do  not  forget  that 
I  am  always  jealous." 

He  held  her  eyes  with  his.  "Of  the  pictures  and  the 
tapestries  ?" 

"Of  all  the  you  I  shall  never  know,"  she  responded 
gravely;  "of  the  things  in  you  I  cannot  understand.  But 
how  foolish  I  should  be  to  deny  it!  You  are  rare.  I 
want  you  to  see  that  I  admire  your  rarity  even  if  I  cannot 
understand  it.  Your  treasures — ah,  of  course  I  must 
yield  part  of  you  to  them.  But  you  must  not  forget  it : 
I  am  always  jealous." 

"So  long  as  it's  a  jealousy  so  theoretical  and  inani- 
mate  !" 


190    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

She  broke  his  sentence  by  turning  sharply  in  her  chair 
and  facing  him.  "Theoretical  and  inanimate!  You — 
you  need  be  jealous,  where  I  am  concerned,  of  only  one 
relation,  and  that  is  a  past  one.  What  is  more,  it  is  a 
relation  you  can  discount  because  you  know  the  unhap- 
piness  it  brought  me.  With  me  it  is  different.  I  am 
jealous  of  every  one  of  your  enthusiasms — the  en- 
thusiasms a  taste  like  yours  can  make  so  concrete;  I  am 
jealous  of  everything  for  which  you  have  ever  cared." 
She  smiled  quickly.  "It  is  a  strange  combination  of 
effects,  but  when  you  have  cared  you  have  been  both  the 
one  who  was  indifferent  and  the  one  who  was  enriched. 
Each  time  you  have  gained  something  deep  and  you  have 
sharpened  your  taste ;  is  it  not  enough  to  make  any  woman 
jealous?" 

Irish,  underneath  the  cover  of  her  rug,  had  caught  and 
held  her  hand.  He  hesitated  for  a  moment.  He  had  al- 
ready been  aware  of  the  contrast  between  his  natural  in- 
difference and  the  state  of  effusion  she  could  create  and 
maintain  in  him — an  effusion  which  had  its  own  para- 
doxical touch  in  that  it  took  shape  again  and  again  in 
the  insistence  of  his  desire  to  marry  her.  "There's  only 
one  way  out  of  it !  I  can't  help  it — one  can't  couple  you 
with  these  things,  these  evasions,  with  the  way" — he 
looked  around — "with  the  way  we  have  to  watch  lest  peo- 
ple are  watching  us.  There's  something  more.  I  can't 
run  the  risks  for  you ;  the  risk  that  the  jealousy  you  speak 
of  now  as  fantastic  should  ever  touch  either  you  or  me. 
It's  too  risky  to  keep  up:  you'll  have  to  marry  me!" 

"Ah,  in  what  a  violent  and  delightful  way  you  put  it !" 
Her  smile  was  full  of  amusement  but  her  eyes  remained 
grave.  "I  cannot  marry  you — no.  But  I  need  the  con- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     191 

solation  of  having  you  want  me  to.  I  never  cease  to  re- 
member that  my  charm  for  you  is  not  as  fixed  as  the 
charm  of  the  good  series  of  tapestries  or  the  pictures.  I 
see  all  the  risks;  and  yet  I  have — how  do  you  say  it? — 
I  have  burned  my  ships." 

"You're  never  sorry?"  he  asked  impulsively.  "If 
you're  sorry,  don't  you  see  that  it's  the  proof  that  there's 
something  better  than  this  for  me  to  do  for  you " 

She  shook  her  head.  He  had  noticed  that  the  tone  of 
her  positiveness  could  vary,  according  to  his  own  mood, 
but  not  its  substance.  However  she  expressed  her  re- 
fusals, he  was  always  reminded  that  they  had  their 
dignity  as  well  as  acceptances.  "You  are  charming  to 
me;  you  always  put  it  that  you  want  only  my  permission 
to  ,do  everything  in  the  world  for  me."  She  paused. 
"But  that  is  a  weakness  of  my  situation ;  I  admit  it.  I  no 
longer  give  you  my  permission — you  have  it.  There  have 
happened  between  us  things  which  make  me  unable  to  do 
otherwise  than  grant  you  permission."  Her  smile  deep- 
ened, and  she  laid  her  hand  on  the  sable  rug  across  her 
knees.  "And  I  have  my  consolations.  Not  only  you,  my 
dear,  but  what  you  give  me  is  always  there  to  console 
me." 

Both  her  instinct  and  her  good  sense  had  prompted  her 
to  maintain  so  high  an  attitude  and  to  determine  that 
all  her  feeling  should  never  betray  her  into  the  small- 
est lapse.  But  a  decisive  incident  occurred  on  the  fol- 
lowing day  to  warn  her  further  of  her  difficulties. 

Irish's  English  cousins,  who  were  among  his  only  near 
relatives,  had  learned  of  his  coming  and  had  motored 
to  Liverpool  to  meet  him.  It  was  Fresneuil  who  found 
them  on  the  pier,  and  he  came  back  to  the  ship, 


192    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

where  Irish  still  waited  with  Anne-Marie,  with  the  warn- 
ing and  the  news  that  they  expected  Irish  to  drive  up 
to  town  with  them.  Irish's  impatience  at  once  broke 
out,  and  he  declared  that  any  admission  of  Anne-Marie's 
presence  and  of  their  situation  would  be  better  than  the 
stupid  necessity  of  leaving  her.  Anne-Marie  herself  had 
yielded  at  once  to  the  obvious  demands  of  prudence  and 
had  assured  him  that  it  would  be  quite  easy  for  her  to  go 
to  an  hotel  for  the  night  and  travel  up  to  London  the 
next  morning.  She  noticed  that  Fresneuil's  efforts  to 
convince  him  supported  her  own.  He  merely  put  before 
Irish  the  probable  results  of  any  fantastic  action.  She 
felt  that  he  had  long  since  learned  that  this  was  the  only 
form  of  dissuasion  possible,  with  a  person  so  determined 
to  have  his  own  way. 

Anne-Marie  lingered  for  a  few  moments  on  the  pier, 
amongst  the  confusion  of  the  luggage,  until  Fresneuil, 
who  had  gone  to  see  Irish  off,  rejoined  her. 

"Now,  madame — I've  a  motor  cab  for  you  and  they 
tell  me  you'll  be  exceedingly  comfortable  at  the  hotel. 
Yes,  Mr.  Irish  got  off  easily.  They're  to  spend  the  night 
halfway  up  to  town  and  he'll  meet  you  at  Euston  on  the 
arrival  of  the  first  fast  train.  I  regret  so  much  that  I 
had  to  keep  you  waiting — that  you've  had  this  delay " 

She  had  never  felt  surer  of  herself  or  of  her  ability 
to  carry  off  the  fact  that,  for  the  first  time,  she  and  Fres- 
neuil must  admit  in  words  the  fact  of  her  situation.  Yet 
she  was  conscious  that  the  high  angle  at  which  she  kept 
her  head  and  the  courtesy  of  her  quick  thanks  could  not 
disguise  her  inner  perturbation.  Fresneuil's  very  con- 
sideration had  stirred  in  her  a  sudden  distaste  for  her 
position — for  her  inability  to  accompany  Irish,  anywhere 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     193 

and  openly,  for  the  caution  which  required  her  to  wait, 
among  the  press  of  the  crowd  and  the  porters  who  came 
and  went  between  the  piles  of  trunks,  until  she  could 
leave  the  pier  unseen. 

Fresneuil  had  taken  up  her  dressing  bag,  and  stood 
waiting  for  her  and  her  maid  to  follow  him.  She  caught 
for  a  moment  in  his  eyes  the  same  thought  which  was 
penetrating  her  and  his  wonder  as  to  how  she  was  to  be- 
come indurated  to  the  necessities  of  such  evasions,  though 
they  had  both  easily  continued  to  talk  and  to  comment 
lightly  on  the  English  climate  and  the  dampness  of  the 
docks. 


XX 


IRISH  drew  a  little  back,  out  of  the  press  of  people 
in  the  long  rooms,  whose  groups  were  constantly 
breaking  and  reforming ;  and  as  he  watched  Anne-Marie, 
across  the  intervening  crowds,  he  felt  as  if  he  had  never, 
in  the  last  few  months,  had  so  clear  a  view  of  her. 

It  was  the  first  time  that  he  had  seen  her  amongst 
other  people — people,  that  is,  who  knew  him  and  who 
recognised  that  she  had  a  position,  or  a  lack  of  position, 
which  they  must  either  accept  or  ignore.  She  disliked 
being  seen  in  public  with  him ;  and  he  was  vaguely  aware 
that  only  the  slight  indications  of  his  restlessness  had 
made  her  consent  to  accompany  him,  on  this  February 
afternoon,  to  a  private  view  of  some  modern  Dutch 
paintings.  Everything  had  conspired  to  bore  him  a  little. 
Fresneuil  could  always  divert  him — Anne-Marie  had  even 
begun  to  suspect  that  sometimes  he  was  astute  enough  to 
make  the  conditions  of  the  search  for  treasures  run  less 


194     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

smoothly,  to  that  end — but  he  had  gone  to  Paris  for  a 
few  days.  Irish  had  not  the  natural  interest  in  his 
tastes  which  would  have  made  him  able  constantly  to 
enjoy  them  alone ;  and  when  he  had  suggested  that  she 
should  go  with  him  to  see  the  pictures,  she  had  instantly, 
if  a  little  to  his  surprise,  consented  to  do  so.  He  had  had 
some  sense  that  he  ought  to  combat  any  scruples  she 
was  not  expressing,  and  he  had  said  that  the  people 
they  would  see,  and  the  one  or  two  artists  he  would 
present  to  her,  were  broad  enough  to  take  things  for 
granted.  In  Europe,  he  reminded  her,  one  could  with 
every  grace  have  a  history,  and  they  were  in  the  midst 
of  a  social  order  which  acknowledged  these  aberra- 
tions even  if  it  did  not  include  them.  She  had  only  re- 
peated her  consent,  without  further  comment.  As  he 
had  watched  her,  across  the  luncheon  table,  the  special 
spirit  with  which  she  did  so  seemed  to  him  as  rare  as 
the  blending  of  the  browns  and  creams  of  her  head 
with  the  lacquered  cabinet  behind  her.  He  was  never  able 
to  escape  these  assurances  of  her  exquisiteness.  It  was 
not  a  question  of  what  people  shut  their  eyes  to,  but 
what  she  could  not  permit  herself  to  shut  her  eyes  to, 
the  mute  tightening  of  her  lips  appeared  for  a  second  to 
remind  him.  Yet  this  was  an  occasion  when  she  had 
plainly  understood  that  he  was  too  interested  to  want  to 
be  bothered  by  her  uncertainties.  She  had  discarded 
them  and  lapsed  into  a  manner  as  sober  and  detached 
as  the  tint  of  her  dark  plain  dress,  as  she  began  to  ask 
him  about  the  exhibition  and  the  men  of  whose  works  it 
was  composed. 

It  had  been  the  natural  consequence  of  the  isolation 
which  came  with  their  happiness  that  Irish  should  have 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     195 

had  few  opportunities  to  judge  her,  except  from  his 
own  point  of  view.  Though  he  believed  he  knew 
her  intimately  it  was  a  revelation  to  him,  when 
they  entered  the  gallery,  to  see  how  her  wonderful 
composition  of  herself  held  and  the  combination  of  the 
vividness  of  her  charm  with  her  gracious  self-efface- 
ment. As  his  attention  had  gradually  wandered  from 
the  pictures  and  he  had  settled  himself  to  watch  her, 
across  the  crowd,  what  had  struck  him  most  had  been 
this  incorruptible  sense  of  fitness  in  her — the  dignity  of 
her  smile  at  a  man  and  the  ease  of  her  tacit  avoidance 
of  whatever  lady  accompanied  him.  The  cleverness 
with  which  she  exercised  her  judgments  did  not  end 
there.  Lately  Irish  had  frequently  been  struck  by  the 
way  he  could  count  on  the  discretions  of  her  taste. 
It  was  not  only  that  she  was  keenly  aware  of  line  and 
colour  and  that  her  visual  faculty  was  as  alert  and  as 
sensitive  as  the  rest  of  her.  She  had  also  that  sobriety 
and  reserve  of  judgment  which,  he  thought,  beyond  any- 
thing else,  meant  the  successful  appreciation  of  the 
artist's  idea.  Her  opinions  had  the  soundness  of  con- 
clusion which  is  not  acquired  by  any  zeal  but  which 
comes  as  the  spontaneous  recognition  of  what  is  good. 
When  he  had  told  her  that  she  had  a  scent  of  the 
same  sort,  even  if  it  weren't  as  educated,  as  Fresneuil's, 
her  acceptance  of  what  he  said  proved  to  him  further 
how  natural  the  quality  was  in  her.  Merely  as  a  qual- 
ity, she  said,  it  did  not  interest  her.  Her  sole  business 
was  to  please  him;  and  she  would  leave  matters  of 
taste  to  him,  since,  as  her  light  wit  was  always  ready 
to  acknowledge,  in  its  more  personal  form  it  had  been 
his  taste  which  made  him  care  for  her. 


196    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

She  had  been  the  first  woman  to  show  him  that  she 
could  merge  the  personal  and  the  impersonal  to  this 
extent,  and  the  result  had  been  an  undoubted  deepen- 
ing and  broadening  of  his  feeling.  When  they  had 
arrived  in  London  it  had  been  she  who  made  him  for 
the  first  time  understand  why  he  had  so  carefully  ar- 
ranged his  house  there,  and  why  he  had  had  a  sense 
of  its  reservation  for  some  special  future.  He  had  man- 
aged to  get  the  house  some  years  before,  attracted 
by  the  warm  tones  of  the  bricks  and  the  slimness  of 
the  columns  around  the  Georgian  portico.  It  had  stood 
empty  for  some  time,  and  later  he  and  Fresneuil  had 
amused  themselves,  at  odd  moments,  by  placing  a  few 
delicate  things  in  the  small  square  rooms,  whose  sober 
elegance  of  proportion  was  so  far  rarer  than  magnificence. 
Once  Anne-Marie  was  established,  she  had  shown  him 
how  she  explained  the  house  and  how  it  fitted  her. 
He  saw  now  why  he  had  kept  everything  a  faded  blue, 
so  old  that  its  surface  was  dusted  lightly  with  a  silvery 
grey,  why  he  had  brought  here  his  best  Venetian  glass 
and  his  best  blacks  and  whites,  and  why  he  had  given 
orders  that  only  the  palest  yellow  roses  were  to  be  put 
in  the  vases.  He  hadn't  only  felt  the  premonition  of 
what  ought  to  go  with  her,  he  said,  but  he  had  also 
foreseen  the  necessary  restraint.  It  had  made  him  care- 
ful to  use  things  so  good  and  so  few  of  them  that  now 
she  could  add  the  last  touch  to  it  and  fill  it  with  her- 
self. 

It  had  been  during  the  winter  months  that  he  had 
learned  that  their  life  together  could  settle  into  steadi- 
ness and  yet  continue  to  be  as  extraordinary.  Irish 
could  not  guess  how  she  managed  it.  But  somehow 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     197 

she  always  contrived  to  be  what  he  wanted  her  to  be 
and  to  compose  herself  to  suit  his  mood  as  flawlessly 
as  he  could  compose  a  room.  The  perfection  of  her 
conduct  had  its  constant  implications,  like  the  colours 
reflected  in  a  fine  crystal.  She  had  made  the  house,  in 
intimate  ways,  characteristic  of  their  feeling.  It  was  her 
idea  that  only  the  most  necessary  people  should  see  her 
here,  and  that,  without  any  proclamation  or  any  false 
accent,  they  should  completely  preserve  their  privacy. 
She  had  said  that  she  wanted  the  house  to  exist  only  as 
it  existed  for  them,  and  that  they  must  keep  it  full  of  a 
silence  which  was  beyond  disturbance.  Yet  if  she  could 
be  stimulative  she  could  be  restful.  He  had  accused  her 
once  of  being  able  to  leave  behind  her  her  very  character, 
in  order  to  become,  for  the  moment,  the  person  whom  it 
would  most  please  him  to  have  her ;  and  he  remembered 
now,  as  he  watched  her,  the  gravity  with  which  she  had 
accepted  this  phrase  as  a  compliment. 

He  was  dimly  conscious  that  she  was  only  the  more 
charming  because  she  so  plainly  admitted  that  she  had 
everything  to  gain  from  adroitness.  She  never  attempted 
to  deny  that  she  stood  on  the  edge  of  a  precipice  over 
which  most  women  are  forced  before  they  see  it.  The 
long  tradition  of  custom  in  her  taught  her  to  use  this 
menace  as  a  weapon  and  to  keep  the  sharpest  eye  on  the 
turn  of  the  wind.  She  had  not  the  slightest  capacity 
for  companionship.  But  she  was  so  absorbed  in  manag- 
ing matters  to  the  end  of  his  happiness  that  companion- 
ship became  too  superficial  a  word  for  so  complete  an 
understanding.  She  had  learned  when  to  have  a  light 
quarrel,  when  to  be  gay  and  when  grave,  when  to  send 
him  out  and  when  to  beg  him  not  to  leave  her.  As  he 


198    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

had  felt  the  instincts  of  her  race  at  work,  behind  the 
guard  of  her  quick  smile,  he  had  had  to  acknowledge 
the  varied  quality  of  her  enchantment. 

Irish  had  admitted  at  once  his  dependence  upon  the 
manipulation  which  had  seemed  to  Gushing  so  insincere. 
Lately  he  had  sometimes  wondered  if  her  responses  had 
not  perhaps  a  suggestion  of  a  too  perfect  preparation. 
Yet  his  uncertainties  were  dispelled  by  the  ardour  in  her 
very  subtlety.  Had  he  ever,  for  instance,  seen  a  woman 
give  a  man  a  look  as  eloquent  as  that  which,  across  the 
shifting  lines  of  people,  she  sent  him  now?  It  was  first 
a  friendly  reassurance  that  he  need  not  trouble  about 
her — that  she  was  enjoying  herself.  Little  by  little  it 
deepened  to  a  reminder  of  the  invisible  bond  between 
them  and  of  the  history  of  their  hours  together.  She 
could  look  at  him  in  a  way  which  made  him  see  not  only 
her  eyes  but  the  intensity  of  his  own,  when  their  reflection 
rose  slowly  to  the  surface  of  hers. 

He  found  himself  making  his  way  through  the  crowd 
to  join  her,  before  he  was  aware  of  it;  and  as  they 
turned  by  mutual  consent  to  the  outer  room,  where  they 
had  left  their  wraps,  they  came  face  to  face  with  Fres- 
neuil.  He  explained  that  he  had  just  arrived,  from  a  be- 
lated Channel  boat,  and  since  he  had  heard  at  the  house 
where  they  were,  he  had  followed  to  ask  if  his  em- 
ployer had  any  instructions  for  him. 

Irish  greeted  him  with  his  usual  disregard  of  any  in- 
terests but  his  own  and  with  all  the  enthusiasm  for 
which,  in  Fresneuil's  absence,  there  was  no  other  outlet. 

"Thank  heaven  you're  back!  Did  you  ever  see  such 
lamentable  things?  There's  one  man  you  might  watch 
for  me — those  little  landscapes  are  his,  and  he's  got 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     199 

quality  in  him.  No,  don't  report  what  you've  got — there's 
time  enough.  Look !  I've  just  made  up  my  mind :  I 
must  have  Madame  du  Chastel  painted." 

Anne-Marie  held  back  for  the  briefest  instant.  It 
was  a  life  of  quick  decisions,  and  in  her  pause  she  had 
made  her  choice.  Since  she  had  wilfully  exposed  her- 
self to  this  kind  of  implied  rudeness,  she  must  accept 
it  with  a  good  grace.  "Mais  bonjour,  monsieur — how  do 
you  do?"  she  said  to  Fresneuil,  with  a  smile.  "You 
perceive  that  Mr.  Irish  is  as  intent  as  ever  on  his  proj- 
ects, do  you  not?" 

"You  don't  mind,  Anne-Marie  ?  You  will  sit  for  some 
one?" 

"But  certainly,   if  you  wish." 

"Whom  could  I  trust  to  do  her?  Who's  just  the  right 
person  ?" 

Fresneuil,  who  had  bowed  formally  over  Anne-Marie's 
hand,  appeared  to  enter  into  the  conversation  with  his 
usual  imperturbability,  if  a  little  against  his  will.  "I 
hope  you  won't  try  it.  It's  sure  to  fail;  Madame  du 
Chastel  can't  be  painted — it's  out  of  the  question." 

"And  why  not,  I  should  like  to  know  ?  She's  made  to 
be  painted;  look  at  her!" 

"Voyons,  man  ami "  Anne-Marie  interposed  hastily. 

"Leave  monsieur  to  his  own  judgment !" 

Fresneuil's  smile  seemed  to  thank  her  and  yet  to  as- 
sure her  that  he  needed  no  aid.  "It  would  be  quite  use- 
less. It's  hopeless  with  people  who  correspond  too  per- 
fectly— who  are  really  too  good." 

"She's  too  good,  then?    If  that's  all !" 

"It  is  all" — Fresneuil  was  evidently  sure  of  him- 
self— "just  that.  It's  more  than  enough.  Her  outer  and 


200     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

her  inner  self  correspond.  She  couldn't  sit  as  most  people 
sit.  She'd  force  too  much  of  herself  on  the  canvas,  and 
that  would  spoil  what — I  grant — is  her  amazingly  paint- 
able  quality.  If  madame  were  nothing  more  than  the 

way  she  looks !  You  permit  me,  madame?  You 

have  painted  yourself  better  than  any  one  can  ever  paint 
you."  His  habit  of  life  had  cured  him  of  gestures,  but 
he  made  one  of  his  rare  ones  now.  "You  are  finished. 
When  the  few  people  like  you  risk  portraits " 

Anne-Marie's  smile  lingered  on  his  face.  "You  con- 
sider it  such  a  risk?" 

"Definiteness  is  a  risk,  is  it  not?"  His  shoulders 
rose.  "Especially  when  the  indefinite — you  allow  me 
again? — is  of  such  a  perfect  quality.  Of  course  if  you 
prefer,  Mr.  Irish,  I  will  look  some  one  up " 

Irish  frequently  made  a  semblance  of  disregarding 
his  secretary,  but  the  habit  of  his  deference  to  so  good 
a  judgment  had  entered  deeply  into  their  relations,  and 
now  he  let  the  matter  go,  with  an  air  which  suggested 
that  at  least  he  had  the  satisfaction  that  an  expert  paid 
such  a  tribute  to  his  good  fortune.  "Oh,  if  you  think 
I'm  going  to  risk  anything  as  horrible  as  the  banal  por- 
trait  !"  he  exclaimed.  He  turned  to  Anne-Marie. 

She  was  going  ?  But  why,  when  there  were  endless  points 
which  Fresneuil  had  arrived  just  in  time  to  give  them! 

"No,  no;  I  have  amused  myself — yes,  enormously,  but 
I  must  go.  You  have  so  much  to  talk  over  with  Mon- 
sieur de  Fresneuil.  I  have  an  errand,  and  it  is  unpar- 
donable to  impose  errands  on  a  man.  Alors,  je  me  sauve. 
You  are  dining  with  me?" 

It  was  one  of  her  formalities  to  assume  that  he 
might  prefer  to  spend  the  evening  elsewhere ;  and  though 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     201 

Irish  always  smiled  at  it,  this  insistence  on  his  independ- 
ence gratified  him  none  the  less.  "Of  course  I'll  dine 
— I've  nothing  else  on  earth  to  do.  And  about  the 
portrait ;  while  we're  here  I'll  convince  Fresneuil.  You'll 
see!" 

Anne-Marie  turned  back  from  the  doorway.  In  the 
past  months  she  had  grown  accustomed  to  the  quick  shift 
of  Fresneuil's  black  eyes  from  her  to  Irish  and  from 
Irish  back  to  her.  She  had  a  persistent  sense  that  his 
comments,  mute  as  they  usually  were,  had  a  significance 
more  important  than  the  fact  that  they  were  the  only 
comments  which  could  reach  her.  It  was  perhaps  be- 
cause of  his  own  suggestion  of  an  impeccable  standard, 
or  of  the  intensity  of  his  power  of  differentiation.  But 
she  was  increasingly  aware  that  he  expressed  a  constant 
test — that  he  continually  reminded  her  of  what  she  could 
and  could  not  risk. 

"No,  I  think  he  is  right.  I  shall  not  try  it — I  have 
changed  my  mind.  Monsieur  has  warned  me :  if  I  were 
placed  on  a  wall  you  would  always  be  trying,  my  dear 
Arthur,  to  solve  me,  to  define  me,  to  see  whether  this  or 
that  were  true."  The  look  she  sent  Irish  was  full  of 
gaiety,  yet  it  had  a  light  trace  of  some  memory  of  her 
former  life.  "And  when  you  Americans  try  to  define 
me,  I  lose  all  my  charm — I  become  merely  tiresome,"  she 
ended. 

They  were  to  see  Fresneuil  again  the  next  evening. 
Irish  was  impatient  about  the  transaction  of  any  business, 
but  his  secretary  had  repeatedly  warned  him  that  there 
were  some  imperative  letters  to  be  signed,  and  when 
he  and  Anne-Marie  rose  from  the  dinner  table  they 


202     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

heard  that  Fresneuil  had  arrived — in  London  he  had  his 
own  small  flat  and  he  came  to  Stratton  street  only  on 
Irish's  summons — and  was  awaiting  them  in  the  library. 

As  Fresneuil  read  over  document  after  document  and 
discussed  with  Irish  the  question  of  the  transfer  of  a 
set  of  water-colours  to  the  New  York  collection,  Anne- 
Marie  watched,  from  her  deep  chair  beside  the  fire, 
the  contrast  between  the  two.  It  was  when  they  were 
together  that  Irish  had  more  than  ever  the  stamp  of  the 
amateur  who  pursues  his  object  desultorily.  She  found 
herself  wondering  now  what  the  shade  of  difference 
was.  His  constant  effort  had  been  to  sensitise  himself. 
Yet  he  had  succeeded  in  doing  so  only  superficially  and 
never  profoundly;  and  something  in  the  definiteness  of 
Fresneuil's  own  quality  suddenly  reminded  her  of  the 
difference  between  the  way  in  which  Irish  denied  the 
American  spirit  and  the  way  in  which  Gushing  had  in- 
sisted upon  it. 

Irish's  attention  wandered  so  much  that  his  secretary, 
after  half  an  hour,  reduced  matters  to  the  barest  for- 
malities. He  was  obviously  as  relieved  as  they  when 
he  rose  and  gathered  up  his  papers.  "That's  all.  I 
regret  so  much  that  I  had  to  trouble  you;  and — by  the 
way — before  I  go  I  want  to  give  you  this." 

Irish  took  the  little  box  he  held  out.  "Something 
you've  picked  up?" 

"Yes — if  one  calls  such  a  thing  capable  of  being  picked 
up.  It's  an  emerald — a  ring.  Blum  had  it  in  Paris  when 
I  passed  through,  and  he  thought  you  would  like  to  see 
it.  It's  been  in  two  collections — the  Tremholz  emerald, 
they  call  it;  Tremholz  brought  it  from  India  forty  years 
ago  and  set  it.  I  arranged  that  I  shouldn't  commit  you. 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     203 

There's  nothing  binding.  Blum  wants  a  small  fortune  for 
it,  but  I  suppose" — he  broke  off,  as  he  laid  his  hand 
upon  the  door,  and  as  his  eyes  went  from  Irish  to 
Anne-Marie  they  had  a  touch  of  irony — "I  suppose  if  one 
wants  those  things  enough " 

"It's  deep?"  Irish  asked,  tearing  the  wrappings  from 
the  box. 

"Very — large  and  flawless.  I  had  Rayner's  expert  see 
it,  in  case  you  should  want  to  keep  it.  He  agrees  with 
me.  It's  flawless  and  extraordinarily  rare." 

"But  you  yourself,  monsieur,  you  will  show  it  to  us  ?" 
Anne-Marie  raised  her  head,  with  a  light  insistence  be- 
hind the  graciousness  of  her  smile. 

"You're  very  good,  madame,  but  I  must  go."  She 
saw  that  there  was  again  something  like  raillery  in  his 
glance,  as  if  he  recognised  that  he  was  always  in  the 
position  of  leaving  them  at  the  right  moment.  "Good 
night;  good  night,  Mr.  Irish." 

He  had  calculated  carefully,  and  as  the  door  closed 
behind  him  Irish  drew  out  the  ring.  A  single  exclama- 
tion broke  from  him  and  from  Anne-Marie,  followed  by 
Irish's  quick  comment  that  one  might  have  known  Fres- 
neuil  would  run  down  such  a  thing.  They  bent  together, 
for  a  moment,  over  the  deep  green  stone,  a  soft  and 
brilliant  sea,  lying  in  an  old  silver  setting  and  with  the 
lightest  lacework  of  diamonds  breaking  against  its  edge ; 
then  Irish  impulsively  slipped  it  on  her  bare  hand.  "Of 
all  wonders — the  thing  I've  always  wanted  for  you !" 

"But,  Arthur,  look  at  it!  It's  too  magnificent,  it's  too 
unbelievable !  Ah,  what  one  feels  it's  seen,  what  one  feels 
it  knows!" 

"Didn't  I  always  say  I  would  give  you  anything  and 


204     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

everything,  but  not  a  ring,  until  I  found  the  perfect 
one?"  He  faced  her  for  a  second  and  then  raised  her 
hand  impulsively  to  his  lips.  "Anne-Marie,  I  beg  you — 
do  marry  me!" 

"My  dear  boy,  is  that  the  way  it  makes  you  feel?" 

"I  don't  know  how  to  say  what  it  makes  me  feel. 
I  only  know  that  I  can't  somehow  couple  you  with  things 
as  they  stand.  I  don't  know  why — I  can't  help  it.  I  want 
all  of  life  to  match  you  as  beautifully  as  this  does."  He 
hesitated  again.  "Don't  you  see  ?  I  want  to  protect  you 
as  I  can't  protect  you  now." 

"How  foolish,  my  dear !"  she  returned  lightly ;  yet  her 
expression,  as  she  turned  the  ring  here  and  there  in  the 
for  this  sort  of  thing." 

"I  know,"  Irish  insisted,  "and  you  don't.  No,  it  won't 
do.  It's  all  very  well  to  talk,  but  you're  not  the  person 
for  this  sort  of  thing." 

She  shook  her  head,  with  a  quick  sigh.  "No,  it  is 
too  late.  If  we  were  to  marry  now — tiens!  But  it  is 
the  ring  itself  which  settles  it!  Could  a  man  marry  a 
woman  to  whom  he  gave  such  a  thing?" 

"But  I'm  serious " 

She  interposed.  "And  I  also.  If  you  give  me  a  ring 
like  this,  it  is  settled.  Ah,  my  dear,  if  we  married  you 
would  give  me  other  things,  but  nothing  quite  like  this! 
One  must  admit  it  of  your  Fresneuil,"  she  smiled;  "he 
has  his  wit." 

"But  you  must  see  my  point!"  Irish  flushed,  in  his 
evident  sincerity.  "I  want  you  to  have  the  very  best ; 
oh,  I  know  these  things,  and  I  tell  you  I  can't  couple 
you  with  anything  but  the  best."  He  paused  and  his 
flush  deepened.  "No,  I'll  admit  it  to  you:  I  can't  under- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     205 

stand  you.  I  can't  understand  why  you  don't  -want  to 
marry,"  he  ended. 

"Ah!"  she  held  herself  for  a  moment  and  then  broke 
out:  "But  you  are  all  alike,  are  you  not?" 

"We're  alike,  the  best  of  us,  in  decency,  I  should 
hope." 

"The  moral  sense — marriage — one  scents  them  in  all 
of  you.  You  cannot  look  on  a  liaison  except  as  degrad- 
ing!" She  lifted  her  hands  to  his  shoulders.  "Bon,  my 
dear,  but  it  is  too  late.  I  will  be  frank  too.  Our  only 
chance  is  not  to  marry." 

"You  think  it  would  fail?" 

"I  know  it.  The  best  chance  in  our  circumstances  is 
the  one  we  have  taken." 

"It's  incredible  you  should  really  think  so,  if  you 
understand  the  risks,"  he  was  beginning,  but  she  took 
him  up  again.  "They  are  not  as  bad  as  the  risks  the 
other  way.  I  have  had  my  lessons."  She  put  it  with  a 
touch  of  pride.  "Come ;  let  us  waste  no  more  time.  Let 
us  return  to  my  ring." 

Irish  continued  to  look  at  her  in  silence.  His  own  life 
of  the  intellect,  if  it  had  weakened  his  personality  in 
some  directions,  had  nevertheless  enabled  him  to  see  in 
her  what  Gushing  had  never  suspected  the  existence  of. 
He  was  conscious  of  this,  and  of  the  enjoyment  which 
her  intricacy — an  intricacy  refined  to  its  component  and 
simple  parts — had  given  him.  Yet  to-night,  for  the  first 
time,  in  the  ease  with  which  she  had  thrown  the  pro- 
prieties to  the  winds,  he  felt  how  alien  all  her  standards 
must  be ;  and  there  seemed  to  him  something  almost  dan- 
gerous in  her  exquisite  and  perfect  logic. 


206     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

XXI 

ANNE-MARIE  had  frankly  recognised  that  one  of 
her  chief  difficulties  was  that  she  could  never  fore- 
see those  trivial  turns  of  event  in  which  the  greatest 
risk  to  her  situation  showed  itself.  The  next  day  Irish 
woke  feeling  flushed  and  ill ;  not  so  ill  as  to  make  actual 
alarm — and  alarm,  as  she  reflected,  would  have  matched 
the  emotional  tensity  of  the  household — but  ill  enough 
to  be  querulous  and  uncomfortable,  and  to  change  his 
usual  demands  upon  her  into  the  mere  need  of  atten- 
tion. 

While  they  awaited  the  doctor  whom  she  had  in- 
stantly summoned,  she  devoted  herself  to  tending  him; 
and  as  she  moved  quickly  and  quietly  about,  with  an 
elaboration  of  care  in  the  arrangement  of  his  pillows  and 
his  medicines,  Irish  had  admitted  that  her  every  gesture 
was  suited  to  a  sick  room.  But  as  his  discomfort  be- 
came more  acute  and  wore  on  his  nerves,  she  could  see 
that  the  lack  of  any  expertness  in  her  tenderness,  in  spite 
of  the  charming  way  in  which  she  exercised  it,  struck 
him  as  incompetent.  She  could  so  eloquently  assure 
him  of  her  sympathy  for  his  pain,  she  heard  him  mur- 
mur to  himself,  and  yet  she  could  not  seem  to  under- 
stand that  the  care  of  illness  was  a  matter  of  keeping 
off  draughts  rather  than  of  the  introduction  of  drama. 

Irish  had  specially  asked  her  to  avoid  being  discovered 
in  his  room;  and  when,  because  of  her  failure  to  be  on 
the  watch,  the  doctor  found  her  bending  anxiously  over 
him,  his  annoyance  visibly  increased.  There  was  another 
element  besides  that  of  his  desire  to  be  let  alone  to 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     207 

add  to  his  discomposure.  This  was  the  first  time  that 
she  and  her  position  had  been  in  question,  not  with  a 
dealer  or  some  one  of  Irish's  heterogeneous  retinue,  who 
accepted  her  as  they  accepted  all  his  eccentricities,  but 
with  a  man  who  might  perhaps  know  Gushing.  The 
doctor  was  an  American  living  in  London,  sharp  and 
terse  and  with  the  home  standards;  and  as  he  crossed 
the  threshold  of  the  room,  his  single  glance  at  Anne- 
Marie  and  the  alacrity  with  which  he  placed  her  showed 
both  her  and  Irish  that  such  fears  had  their  founda- 
tion. 

Irish  did  his  best,  however,  to  carry  it  off  with  courtesy, 
and  he  formally  presented  the  doctor  to  Madame  du 
Chastel.  As  her  head  bent  in  response,  he  had  to  grant 
that  her  dignity  was  never  more  perfect  than  when  it 
was  in  question. 

"I  am  in  great  anxiety  about  Mr.  Irish,"  she  said 
clearly.  "His  condition  alarms  me,  and  I  must  ask  you 
to  give  me  the  very  fullest  report  of  how  you  find  him." 

"I  shall  be  happy  to  do  so,  when  I've  examined  him;" 
the  doctor's  smile  implied  his  understanding.  "But 
whatever's  wrong  with  him — and  I  hope  it's  nothing  much 
— anxiety  won't  help.  We  don't  consider  it  the  best  tonic 
for  patients." 

"But  I  am  anxious — very  anxious.  You  will  tell  me 
frankly  what  you  think?" 

"Oh,  of  course  he  will,"  said  Irish.  "Go  into  my  sitting 
room,  if  you  will,  and  we'll  call  you  when  he's  finished 
with  me." 

"But  I  want  to  ask " 

"I  prefer  that  one  shouldn't  ask,  just  now.  It's  charm- 
ing of  you,  but  do  go." 


208    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"You  will  both  remember  that  I  really  must  know 
everything?" 

"Of  course,  of  course."  Irish's  impatience  shook  his 
voice  a  little. 

She  forgot  the  doctor  in  a  flash.  "But,  Arthur,  I  only 
meant " 

"Ah,  it's  so  good  of  you,  but  for  heaven's  sake  let 
us  get  the  thing  finished !" 

It  appeared  that  the  doctor  had  only  reasssuring  news 
for  them.  Irish's  only  trouble  was  a  heavy  cold  on  the 
chest,  and  he  could  inform  Anne-Marie  when  she  returned 
that  all  that  was  necessary  was  constant  care :  as  if,  he 
was  obviously  thinking,  one  could  suppose  a  person  of  this 
aspect  capable  of  following  instructions.  The  too  wide 
experiences  of  a  physician  had  perhaps  indurated  him  and 
made  him  too  quick  in  his  judgments.  As  he  looked  at 
Anne-Marie  more  closely  his  manner  gained  some  ac- 
cent of  consideration. 

"Madame  du  Chastel  need  not  worry,"  he  addressed 
himself  both  to  her  and  to  Irish.  "If  you're  careful  you 
will  be  up  in  a  few  days.  Keep  Mr.  Irish  perfectly 
quiet,  madame,  and  we  shall  see  marked  improvement 
to-morrow." 

She  rewarded  him  for  his  change  of  tone.  "You  are 
very  kind.  I  will  fulfil  your  orders — ah,  but  with  all  the 
faithfulness  of  which  I  am  capable.  Yes.  He  looks  a 
little  stronger,  does  he  not?  Such  a  cruel  climate  as  it 
is!  But  if  I  raise  the  curtain — there,  he  has  more 
colour!  Do  you  see?" 

The  sincerity  of  her  concern  drew  the  doctor's  eyes 
to  her  again.  He  was  evidently  wondering  if  it  might  be 
one  of  the  injustices  of  fate  which  opposed  the  poise  of 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     209 

her  head  and  her  delicately  drawn  features  to  Irish's 
irritability.  The  kindness  in  his  tone  deepened  as  he 
spoke  again.  "You  really  must  believe  me — the  thing's 
entirely  simple.  Count  upon  my  telling  you  the  exact 
truth." 

"Oh,  all  I  need  is  rest  and  care!"  Irish  insisted,  with 
the  clearer  air  of  the  situation  allowing  him  to  admit 
his  ill-temper. 

"Yes,  rest  and  care.  And  before  I  go" — the  doctor 
had  risen,  with  his  eyes  still  on  Anne-Marie — "I  beg 
your  pardon,  but  will  you  allow  me  a  liberty,  madame? 
I  have  a  hobby — unfortunately  it's  one  I  can't  very  largely 
gratify — but  in  my  way  I've  a  small  collection  of  precious 
stones.  May  I  ask  you  if  that's  the  Tremholz  emerald?" 

"This?    My  ring?" 

"Yes — the  one  Blum  has  lately  had.  It  was  on  view  in 
Paris,  last  autumn." 

"Mais  oui;  did  not  Monseuir  de  Fresneuil  say  it  came 
from  Blum,  Arthur?  You  collect  stones,  monsieur?" 

"Yes,  as  I  can  and  when  I  can.  They're  of  immense 
interest  to  me — emeralds  especially.  I  went  to  see  this — 
ah,  thank  you,  may  I  look  at  it? — and  it's  a  pleasure  to 
see  it  again." 

"And  can  you  imagine,"  she  had  handed  him  the  ring 
and  she  now  turned  upon  Irish  a  look  of  eloquent  tender- 
ness, "the  pleasure  it  is  to  me  to  own  it!" 

Her  voice  broke  and  dropped,  in  a  painful  embarrass- 
ment; before  her  words  were  finished  she  had  caught 
Irish's  sharp  flush  of  anger  and  the  confusion  in  his 
face.  She  hesitated,  murmured  some  good-bye,  and  hur- 
riedly quitted  the  room. 

When  Irish  saw  her  again  his  first  news  was  that,  on 


210     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

her  leaving  them,  the  doctor  had  said  he  must  have  a 
nurse.  ''I  shall  be  in  bed  for  some  days  at  least,  and  I 
really  ought,  you  know,  to  have  some  one  to  look  out 
for  me." 

Anne-Marie  held  her  reply  for  a  moment.  Perhaps 
what  perplexed  her  most  was  his  delay  in  reproaching 
her  for  what  she  supposed  he  felt  was  a  fault  of  taste. 
The  tears  slowly  rose  to  her  eyes.  Everything  in  the 
world  appeared  to  hang  in  question.  It  was  the  first  time 
she  had  dealt  with  him  as  instinctively  and  thoughtlessly 
as  she  had  at  times  dealt  with  Gushing,  and  the  lapse  of 
her  control  threw  her  off  her  guard. 

"I  hope  the  nurse  will  not  be  young,"  was  all  she  could 
trust  herself  to  say. 

"Oh,  come,  my  dear,  be  reasonable !  Of  course  I  must 
have  a  nurse." 

"Because  I  am  incapable  of  taking  care  of  you?" 

"My  child,  don't  you  see  that  it's  only  decent  that 
I  should  have  a  nurse?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  the  clearest  astonishment. 
"Decent?" 

"Decent,"  Irish  repeated.  "I  shall  keep  everything  that 
touches  you  decent,  if  I  can." 

"Decent,  decent!"  Her  prudence  vanished.  "Is  it 
decent  for  me  to  love  you  as  I  do  and  not  to  take  care 
of  you?  Is  it  decent  for  me  to  accept  everything  and 
give  nothing?  To  see  another  woman  tending  you?  Is 
our  relationship  only  for  the  happiness  of  life?" 

"It's  not  decent,"  Irish  was  patient  but  positive,  "that 
you  should  in  any  way  demean  yourself." 

"Oh,"  she  cried,  "your  hideous  view  of  women !  I 
must  be  pampered  and  spoilt,  but  I  may  not  do  what 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

proclaims  that  I  care  for  you.  You  regard  that  as  de- 
grading. Anything  so  long  as  one  does  not  name  a  thing 
by  the  real  name!  Quick,  send  for  a  nurse!  It  is  not 
decent  that  I  should  work  for  you  and  slave  for  you. 
Decent !  And  what  do  you  call  decency  ?  Tiens,  when  he 
wanted,  ce  docteur,  to  see  my  ring  and  I  implied  to  him 
that  you  had  given  it  to  me,  you  were  angry.  Was  that 
not  decent?" 

"No ;  it  wasn't.  I  had  forced  him — you  had  forced 
him — to  treat  you  with  respect,  to  disregard  the  situation ; 
and  by  admitting  that  I  gave  you  such  jewels " 

Her  wonder  was  so  innocent  now  that  Irish  felt,  as 
she  stared  at  him,  that  he  was  seeing  some  essential  of 
her  character  laid  bare.  "But  did  you  not  give  it  to  me?" 

"I  did ;  of  course." 

"And  to  admit  it — not  to  disregard  it,  you  say " 

"To  admit  it  admitted,  in  the  superficial  view,  coarse- 
ness— pay,"  said  Irish  hotly. 

"But,  Arthur,  be  calm!  But  reflect!  You  would  not 
have  any  one  think  you  had  so  little  appreciation  of  what 
I  have  done  for  you  that  you  did  not  offer  me  these 
things.  Pay  can  be  noble ;  it  would  be  indecent,"  she 
ended,  "if  you  did  not  pay  me !" 

The  look  of  incomprehension  with  which  Irish  closed 
the  subject — a  look  of  which  she  felt  she  had  caught  a 
faint  foreboding  on  the  preceding  night — remained  cease- 
lessly before  Anne-Marie.  It  assumed  an  importance 
greater  than  the  importance  of  the  fact  that  because  of 
his  condition  the  vivid  spectacle  of  their  life  together  was 
temporarily  reduced  to  the  commonplace.  Irish  con- 
tinued ill  for  a  week  or  so ;  and  while  she  moved  restlessly 
from  room  to  room,  wondering  how  she  could  pass  the 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

hours  during  which  he  slept  or  the  hours  during  when 
her  presence  was  plainly  unwise  for  him,  she  had  felt  a 
change  take  place  in  herself.  Between  an  unreasoning 
insistence  on  her  own  feeling  and  a  recognition  of  what 
she  must  do  to  stimulate  Irish's,  there  was  now  the  sep- 
aration of  the  sharp  divisions  of  actuality. 

His  necessary  isolation  and  hers  had  not  only  reminded 
her  of  how  closely  she  must  be  on  her  guard.  The  practi- 
cal resentment  he  had  shown  had  warned  her  further. 
She  knew  he  was  a  man  whose  impulses  were  spon- 
taneous and  beyond  the  influences  of  reflection.  The 
fact  that  she  could  no  longer  count  on  her  power  to  make 
her  unreasonableness  itself  charm  him  had  given  her  a 
glimpse  of  those  forces  which,  under  the  general  efful- 
gence of  her  happiness,  opposed  and  eluded  her.  She  had 
admitted  from  the  first  that  to  hold  Irish  required  an 
adroitness  which  reached  the  point  of  a  science.  Now 
she  saw  that  if  she  were  to  succeed  she  must  not  only 
be  clever  and  quick  but  that  she  must  annihilate  her  own 
feelings.  She  must  sacrifice  not  only  her  moods  but  her 
happiness  itself  in  the  interest  of  keeping  his  at  the  requi- 
site pitch.  For  the  first  time  she  seemed  to  see  herself 
standing  with  her  back  to  a  wall  beyond  which  there  was 
no  escape,  and  fighting  less  to  maintain  a  condition  than  to 
warn  off  the  gradual  approach  of  what  she  could  scarcely 
yet  discern. 

She  had  gone  one  evening  into  her  own  sitting  room, 
which  gave,  beyond  a  connecting  corridor,  upon  Irish's 
library;  and  with  her  chair  drawn  to  the  fire  she  had 
let  her  meditation  sink  into  a  deep  silence.  The  room 
was  filled  with  an  odour  as  rich  as  its  contents — with  what 
she  always  felt  to  be  the  actual  aroma  of  priceless  objects 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     213 

— and  the  fumes  of  the  fire  were  enriched  by  the  scent 
of  the  flowers  which  stood  on  every  table.  She  and  Irish 
had  united  in  allowing  a  little  confusion  here.  The  things 
he  could  not  be  sure  he  wanted  for  her — a  delicate  little 
statuette,  a  rose-coloured  crystal  vase,  a  first  edition  about 
whose  authenticity  there  was  a  faint  question,  stood  to- 
gether on  her  desk,  amongst  the  Cellini  bowls  filled  with 
violets  and  the  French  fashion  papers  she  had  just  run 
through.  It  was  the  room  for  which  she  cared  most,  she 
had  always  thought ;  less,  perhaps,  for  its  simple  lines  and 
for  the  elusive  delicacy  of  the  two  Fragonards,  over  the 
old  gilt  consoles,  than  for  this  sense  of  a  warm  and  chang- 
ing life  amongst  the  rarities  which  filled  it. 

The  stillness  of  the  house,  even  more  marked  than 
usual  since  Irish  was  trying  to  sleep,  was  broken  by  a 
quick  knock  at  her  door,  and  in  response  to  a  low  word 
from  her  Fresneuil  came  in. 

"I've  finished  Mr.  Irish's  letters  and  I  am  just  going; 
there  is  nothing  more,  I  think?"  He  was  lingering  at 
the  door,  with  his  hand  on  the  knob,  and  Anne-Marie  felt 
his  scrutiny  pause  upon  her,  waver,  and  then  return  to 
her  again.  "There  is  nothing,  madame,  that  I  can  do  for 
you?" 

"Nothing;  unless — "  she  smiled  lightly,  "unless  you 
will  give  me  a  few  moments  of  your  time.  It  is  one  of 
those  cruel  English  nights,  is  it  not? — when  the  damp 
penetrates  one's  blood " 

She  had  laid  her  book  on  the  arm  of  her  chair  and 
had  motioned  Fresneuil,  with  her  easy  courtesy,  to  the 
chair  opposite.  In  response  to  her  invitation  he  came 
forward,  not  to  seat  himself  but  to  lean  over  the  back  of 
the  chair  towards  her.  The  crossed  lights  of  the  fire  and 


iMR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

of  the  lamp  at  her  elbow  lit  his  face ;  and  she  saw  that  for 
the  first  time  he  prolonged  and  deepened  the  glance  he 
cast  at  her. 

Its  quick  intelligence  arrested  her.  She  had  understood 
all  along  that  there  had  not  been  a  mental  stage  of  the 
past  months,  which  had  now  extended  almost  to  a  year, 
of  which  his  instinct  to  strike  to  the  kernel  of  fine  situa- 
tions had  not  made  him  aware.  He  was  obviously  and 
frankly  able  to  recognise  how  little,  in  a  relationship  of 
so  high  a  key,  an  outsider  could  count.  Yet,  for  the  first 
time,  she  felt  she  had  not  only  a  more  open  view  of  him 
than  his  carefully  closed  personality  had  ever  permitted, 
but  a  view  of  his  implication  in  her  own  affairs.  It 
suddenly  seemed  to  her  that  he  resumed  in  himself  the 
opinions  and  refutations  of  her  own  traditions  and  stand- 
ards. 

"I  hear,"  she  continued,  "that  you  are  again  going  over 
to  Paris  for  a  fortnight.  Mr.  Irish  told  me  yesterday; 
he  is  quite  helpless  at  the  prospect."  She  sighed.  "But  I 
suppose  it  is  the  spring  you  want  to  catch — the  spring 
which  comes  more  beautifully  in  France  than  in  any 
country  in  the  world." 

Fresneuil  smiled.  "Yes,  it  is  true.  There  are  February 
days — days  almost  upon  us  now — when  in  Paris  one  does 
catch  it.  It  slants  down  into  the  narrowest  and  noisiest 
streets,  it's  in  the  coldest  wind." 

"You  are  not  Parisian  by  birth."  It  occurred  to  her,  as 
she  spoke,  how  little  she  knew  of  his  antecedents  and 
she  felt  a  slight  astonishment — less  at  her  ignorance  than 
at  her  acceptance  of  the  fact  that  they  must  necessarily 
resemble  her  own. 

"No,  no ;  we  have  our  home  in  Burgundy.    My  mother, 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    215 

when  we  were  children,  went  sometimes  to  Paris  for  a 
month  or  two — to  see  her  relatives  or  to  hear  the  Lenten 
sermons  at  the  Madeleine " 

"I  know !  And  mine,  the  same  way !"  She  smiled  back 
at  him.  "But  little  as  I  was  when  my  parents  died,  I  can 
remember  their  contentment  at  coming  home.  It  is  only 
we  modern  ones  who  really  know  Paris,  and  we  live  such 

scattered  lives Then  you  go,  now,  to  your  own 

people  ?" 

"No;  I  shall  be  by  myself.  For  the  last  three  years 
or  so  I  have  kept,  as  well  as  my  rooms  here,  a  little  flat 
in  Paris.  Whenever  Mr.  Irish  can  spare  me,  I  run 
over."  He  hesitated,  and  she  had  the  odd  sense  that  he 
then  admitted  her  a  step  further  into  his  scrupulously 
maintained  reserve.  "Such  times  are  my  times  of 
recueillement." 

"You  are  fortunate  to  have  them,"  she  said  gravely; 
she  had  turned  her  eyes  again  to  the  fire.  "Few  of  us 
have  them.  Our  lives — the  outward  relations  of  our 
lives — usually  demand  our  presence  steadily.  It  has 
always  been  my  dream  that  if  one  could  have  such  a 
place  to  go  to — one  or  two  rooms,  warm  and  sunny  and 
filled  with  one's  self  alone — one  would  really  escape.  It 
does  not  matter  for  how  long  one  escapes ;  all  that  matters 
is  the  completeness  of  one's  emancipation,  while  it  lasts." 

Fresneuil  was  silent  for  a  moment.  She  could  feel  the 
steadiness  of  his  look  on  her  when  he  spoke.  "True, 
madame;  but  when  one's  life  is  brilliant  and  lovely,  when 
it  is  a  rare  success " 

Anne-Marie  was  silent  for  longer  than  he.  His  impli- 
cation had  been  as  light  and  as  courteous  as  his  brief 
confidences  to  her.  But  she  felt  herself  influenced  by 


216     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

the  uncertainties  of  the  past  days,  by  the  hour,  the  silence 
of  the  room  and  by  Fresneuil's  evident  attention;  and 
when  she  finally  responded  her  voice  had  dropped  to  a 
lower  and  deeper  note  than  any  she  had  yet  let  him  hear. 
"Ah,  but  that  is  it!  It  is  never  possible  to  look  for 
continued  success  when  one  fights  against  custom." 

He  answered  instantly,  though  his  own  tone  remained 
as  courteous  and  as  distant.  "No.  That  is  of  course 
true." 

"My  task,  in  my  life,"  she  pursued,  with  her  voice 
still  low,  "is  to  postpone  a  day  of  reckoning." 

"Yes,  madame,  that  I  can  imagine;  and  for  that  one 
needs,"  Fresneuil's  shoulders  rose  and  fell,  "for  that  one 
needs  a  sustained  power  of  stoicism." 

She  did  not  reply,  and  after  another  pause  Fresneuil 
gathered  up  the  papers  he  had  laid  on  the  table  nearest 
him.  His  consideration  evidently  kept  him  silent.  With 
a  quick  glance,  which  registered  her  absorption  in  her 
own  thoughts,  he  turned  to  the  door.  He  had  half  opened 
it  when  she  again  spoke  abruptly.  "Tell  me,  monsieur — 
should  you  say  I  had  it,  that  sustained  power  of  stoicism  ? 
When  I  think  of  what  we  women  have  to  keep  off,  to  keep 

out,  to  keep  inexplicable !"  She  broke  off,  with  one 

of  her  quick  sweeping  gestures. 

Fresneuil  bowed.  "Life  as  you  live  it  is  magnificent; 
you  will  let  me  say  that?" 

She  caught  his  eyes  and  held  them  steadily.  "But 
just  the  magnificence  is  that  it  must  ultimately  fail." 

"Ah,  quant  a  cela — yes;  it  must  ultimately  fail."  He 
seemed  for  a  moment  about  to  say  more,  and  then  he 
lapsed  into  his  usual  manner.  "There  were  no  more 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     217 

orders  from  Mr.  Irish,  then  ?    Thank  you,  madame ;  good 
night." 

XXII 

SHE  chose  the  first  afternoon  that  Irish  was  able  to 
go  out  to  broach  to  him  the  plan  which  was  the  first 
result  of  the  warning  she  had  so  frankly  recognised  and 
accepted.  They  had  gone  together  to  Kensington  Gardens 
and  had  settled  themselves  at  a  little  table  under  the  trees 
for  tea.  Now  that  the  earth  began  to  smell  so  good  and 
the  air  to  soften,  it  was  worth  such  bourgeois  surround- 
ings, she  said,  to  be  able  as  one  drank  one's  tea  to  look 
at  the  first  fresh  tint  of  the  turf  and  the  light  glancing 
along  the  branches. 

She  had  tried  all  afternoon  to  be  singularly  charm- 
ing— perhaps  preparing  the  way,  in  her  astute  manner, 
for  what  she  had  to  say.  Yet,  as  she  put  down  her  cup 
and  looked  across  at  him,  her  purpose  to  do  anything  but 
accept  thankfully  whatever  he  gave  her  hung  dangerously 
on  the  brink  of  revulsion.  He  had  lit  a  cigarette  and 
leaned  back  in  his  chair,  with  one  of  his  crossed  feet 
swinging  and  his  hands  absently  twirling  his  stick.  His 
eyes,  with  their  habitually  critical  expression,  were  watch- 
ing the  pale  greys  and  mauves  of  the  soft  English  after- 
noon. The  air  and  the  attitude  were  his  most  typical,  and 
they  drew  to  her  eyes  a  look  of  tenderness. 

It  had  been  a  necessary  complement  of  her  feeling  for 
Irish  that  her  own  critical  instinct  should  not  cease  to  act. 
Her  sharp  sense  of  contrast  had  given  her  experiences 
with  him  a  deeper  charm.  Irish's  greatest  attraction 
for  her  lay  in  her  recognition  of  the  juxtaposition  of  the 


218     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

elements  in  his  character.  She  enjoyed  his  cleverness  the 
more  because  of  his  self-insistence.  He  had  not  been 
born  to  the  understanding  of  beauty,  like  Fresneuil.  He 
had  rather  had  to  pay  the  penalty  of  his  racial  quality, 
and  it  was  undeniable  that  he  had  not  a  definite  enough 
flavour  to  make  his  dilettantism  altogether  excusable.  She 
had  frequently  compared  these  facts  with  her  remem- 
brance of  her  husband.  It  was  true  that  Gushing  had 
insisted  upon  a  view  of  life  which  Irish  disregarded.  Yet 
she  had  plainly  seen  the  ultimate  resemblance  between 
the  two.  Her  knowledge  of  Irish  had  taught  her  that 
he  had  just  missed  leading  a  conventional  life,  as  he  had 
just  missed  the  simpler  enjoyment  of  his  pleasures.  If 
on  the  one  hand  he  had  some  of  the  trained  egoism  which 
exists  in  men  who  regard  their  pleasure  as  separate  from 
chivalry,  and  chivalry  itself  more  as  a  manner  than  as  an 
ideal,  he  had,  on  the  other,  a  consideration  for  women 
which  was  always  verging  on  the  point  of  shyness. 

She  began  with  that  air  of  abruptness  which  she  could 
yet  make  so  finished.  "My  dear,  I  do  not  tell  you  often 
enough  how  delightful  you  are!" 

Irish  turned  from  his  contemplation  of  the  trees  to 
smile  at  her,  and  she  continued:  "You  have  enormous 
quality — enormous.  Here  we  have  seen  nothing  but  each 
other  for  months,  and  I  am  still  learning  you.  Can  I 
ever,  I  wonder,  be  as  much  of  a  secret  to  you  as  you 
are  to  me?" 

"If  you  think  you're  what's  called  obvious !"  he  re- 
torted. 

Anne-Marie  laughed.  "Ah,  do  you  suppose  that  I  am 
so  naive  that  I  think  a  man  wants  a  woman  to  continue 
forever  to  be  a  secret  to  him?  Before  he  has  established 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     219 

his  sentiment — yes,  that  is  conceivable.  But  later,  when 
they  have  a  real  ground  to  stand  on,  he  does  not  want 
the  disturbance  of  uncertainty.  And  with  us  women  it 
is  so  different !" 

"You  mean  that  you  yourself  are  always  uncertain?" 

"Always;  one  never  knows,  you  know,"  she  retorted 
wisely ;  "and  specially  with  you  !  And  though  I  know  all 
the  risks,  that  is  why  it  will  be  hard  for  me  to  leave  you." 

"And  who  talks  of  leaving?" 

"But  I  do." 

"But  how  preposterous !    What  on  earth  do  you  mean  ?" 

"Hush,  Arthur,  hush!  You  will  disgrace  yourself. 
Ah,  I  shall  not  leave  you  forever !  But  I  have  made  up 
my  mind  that  I  cannot  go  on  living  all  the  time  with  you 
— that  I  cannot  go  on  in  Stratton  street." 

"But  the  thing's  unthinkable !  We  worked  it  out  before 
we  left  home,  and  we  settled  on  London  as  a  permanency. 
Paris  wouldn't  do,  New  York  wouldn't  do.  We  never 
for  a  moment  considered  anything  else.  It  was  all 
planned,  all  thought  out." 

"And  I  know  better  than  plans."  She  carried  it  off 
gaily.  "No,  I  do  not  hurry  you.  I  merely  tell  you  my 
decision.  Somewhere  in  the  country  you  will  find  a 
house  for  me.  That  will  be  my  home,  I  shall  live  there. 
Whenever  you  please  you  shall  come  to  me — for  days, 
weeks,  months,  as  you  want.  I  may  sometimes  scandalise 
the  world  and  come  to  you." 

"But  what's  to  be  gained,  except  the  added  incon- 
venience of  travel  ?" 

"The  gain  is  that  I  shall  not  always  be  on  your  hands." 

"And  that's  a  gain?" 


220     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"The  difference  between  the  expected  and  the  unex- 
pected is  the  gain." 

"Oh,  come,  my  dear,  a  difference  of  nuance " 

She  nodded.  "A  difference  of  nuance,  I  admit ;  but  in 
our  situation  nuance  is  of  infinite  importance.  Come! 
Take  your  time !  We  can  go  about  in  the  motor  and  hunt 
for  something,  can  we  not  ?  And  you  shall  choose  what- 
ever you  prefer.  You  have  said  the  English  country  is 
sometimes  amusing.  Du  courage!  You  will  see!" 

"But  you  can't  seriously  mean  it !  The  house  in  Strat- 
ton  street — why,  it's  become  yours ;  and  to  be  there  only 
rarely,  to  be  lost  in  some  beastly  wilderness  when  you 
love  a  city  so " 

"Ah,  if  I  love  a  city !"  Her  look  wandered  across  the 
long  stretch  of  green  to  the  trees  which  bound  it  and  to 
the  line  of  houses  discernible  beyond.  "If  I  love  Lon- 
don! Listen — do  you  hear  it?  What  a  magnificent 
sound !  I  could  not  understand  it  at  first ;  but  now  what 
it  has  taught  me !  London  knows  emotions,  it  knows  the 
best  brilliancy  and  power.  Those  houses,  so  dignified, 
so  compact,  are  full  of  the  secrets  of  an  old,  old  life.  It 
is  not  decorative,  like  Paris,  it  is  not  young — at  once 
eager  and  malevolent — like  New  York.  It  is  clever,  it  is 
deep.  It  knows  more  than  any  city  in  the  world.  Mais  si, 
that  is  it.  It  knows  situations  of  distinction,"  she  turned 
back  to  him,  "situations  like  ours." 

"The  way  you  do  things!"  Irish  exclaimed.  His  eyes 
played  on  her  with  amusement.  "The  way  you  can  couple 
life  and  eternity  with  your  own  case,  the  way  you  are 
always  the  most  modern  lady  of  the  most  modern  French 
drama — !  How  do  you  manage  it — always  to  talk  as  if 
you  expected  to  be  written  down?" 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"And  why  should  one  not  put  the  best  of  one  into 
talk?"  she  retorted.  "As  if  talk  were  only  for  the  ex- 
change of  banalities!  And  when  one  is  stirred  by  such 
a  subject — !" 

"Yet  when  you  feel  like  that  you  can  consider  leaving 
Stratton  street  ?" 

"I  can  even  leave  Stratton  street,"  she  rejoined  firmly ; 
"I  can  even  leave  that  house  which  has  been  my  heaven — 
the  house  which,  when  I  grow  old  and  wrinkled  and 
hideous,  I  shall  remember  above  everything  else.  I  shall 
remember — ah,  you  know  all  I  shall  remember.  But 
because  I  love  it,  it  instructs  me.  No,  I  must  go." 

Irish  was  unconscious  that  his  response  paid  tribute 
to  her  astuteness.  "Oh,  well,  if  you  insist,"  he  declared, 
"I  shall  be  so  endlessly  bored !" 

Anne-Marie  secretly  thought  it  a  reward  for  the  effort 
her  decision  cost  her  that,  since  her  ideas  of  the  country 
were  vague,  the  appropriate  place  was  not  easy  to  find. 
To  begin  with  they  had  looked  for  a  house  near  town, 
within  easy  motoring  distance,  and  she  had  had  her 
plans  of  constant  visits  to  the  crowded  thoroughfares  to 
console  her.  But  Irish's  taste  and  hers  were  equally  diffi- 
cult to  suit.  He  insisted  that  he  could  not  see  her  in 
the  ordinary  country  residence,  and  she  on  her  side  was 
always  in  dread  of  the  dampness,  of  the  proximity  of 
animals  and  of  the  country  sounds.  Yet  she  would  not 
permit  him  to  laugh  the  matter  off.  Somewhere,  she 
insisted,  there  must  be  a  house  neither  too  large  nor 
too  small,  with  the  dignity  of  its  own  park — a  place  which 
had  seen  some  history;  and  after  some  weeks  of  fruit- 
less search  even  Irish  had  to  grant  that  they  had  found 


222     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

the  right  thing.  He  had  heard  one  day,  through  the  acute 
Fresneuil,  that  by  some  miracle  Morte  was  in  the  market, 
a  Dorsetshire  manor  house  famous  for  the  grace  of  its 
twirled  chimneys  and  the  beauty  of  its  Elizabethan  man- 
tels ;  and  when  they  went  to  inspect  it  his  enthusiasm 
had  made  Anne-Marie  feel  that,  in  spite  of  the  three 
hours'  journey  from  town,  she  must  not  hesitate  in  her 
consent. 

Once  she  had  overcome  her  first  instinctive  distaste,  she 
found  that  she  could  see  in  her  surroundings  their  own 
charm.  There  was  no  county  more  essentially  English 
than  Dorset,  Irish  was  fond  of  saying,  none  where  Con- 
stable could  so  typically  have  worked;  and  yet  its  net- 
work of  lanes  and  meadows,  merging  sharply  here  and 
there  in  the  broad  sweep  of  downs,  had  none  of  the 
monotony  she  dreaded.  It  was  not  the  garden-like  com- 
pactness of  the  French  landscape,  but  one  full  of  a  more 
compact  racial  tradition.  She  admitted  that  she  liked  the 
villages,  that  their  air  of  grave  self-sufficiency  was  as 
eminently  suited  to  the  English  character  as  the  stolidity 
of  the  oaks  and  the  sentimental  drop  of  the  elms,  though 
she  herself  preferred  trees  which  were  formed  and  in- 
telligent. Her  pleasure  was  actual.  Yet  Irish  had  to 
admit  that  her  appreciation  itself  was  formalised  and 
critical.  In  the  last  analysis  she  regarded  nature  itself 
as  a  background  and  as  accessory  to  her  own  effects.  Her 
imagination  never  got  beyond  the  palpable.  She  could 
make  an  apt  phrase  about  the  different  greens  through  a 
soft  grey  rain  or  about  the  beauty  of  a  sunset,  but  she  was 
incapable,  as  she  constantly  reminded  him,  with  a  shrug, 
of  drawing  ethical  deductions  from  them.  He  gradually 
began  to  see  that  her  pleasure  in  the  new  setting  of  her 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    223 

life  had  its  foundation  less  in  the  beauty  of  Morte  than 
in  the  appropriateness  with  which  it  framed  her. 

Irish  knew  that  it  was  one  of  the  gifts  of  her  type 
of  sensitiveness  that  she  felt  the  spirit  of  houses  and 
had  the  secret  of  extracting  from  them  their  inmost  per- 
sonalities and  amalgamating  them  with  her  own.  He 
remembered  that  even  her  difference  with  Cushing's  house 
had  been  in  perfect  taste,  and  that  she  had  seemed  to 
treat  it  with  no  less  consideration  than  the  house  in  Strat- 
ton  street  which  so  eminently  suited  her.  Her  compre- 
hension of  Morte  was  more  deeply  rooted.  It  was  when 
he  saw  the  sober  elegance  with  which  she  responded  to 
its  countless  implications  that  he  felt  for  the  first  time 
the  height  of  the  aristocracy  in  her  own  tradition.  The 
lovely  rooms  in  Stratton  street,  she  had  always  told  him 
— and  though  she  could  never  again  care  for  rooms  so 
completely — had  been  too  egotistical.  They  were  merely 
his  and  hers,  a  background  which  he  had  exquisitely  com- 
posed for  her.  Irish  himself  understood  that  her  sym- 
pathy with  Morte  was  profounder.  Order  was  the  word 
which  best  expressed  its  essence,  a  carefully  sifted  order, 
slowly  deposited  by  generations,  which  had  coloured  the 
bricks,  smoothed  the  lawns  and  softened  the  echoes.  It 
was  not  a  vast  house  but  one  of  large  and  noble  propor- 
tions, and  it  achieved  on  all  sides  a  quality  of  the  rarest 
distinction.  This  impalpable  air  was  the  one  which  Anne- 
Marie  so  perfectly  matched.  There  was  something  in 
her  manner,  as  she  descended  the  sweep  of  the  staircase 
or  sat  opposite  him  in  the  sombre  dining  room,  whose 
carvings  were  unequalled  in  that  part  of  England,  which 
reminded  Irish  that  this  was  the  spaciousness  and  the 
grace  to  which  she  was  fundamentally  accustomed.  She 


224     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

could  even  contrive  that  in  such  exacting  surroundings 
she  and  Irish  should  take  on  some  appearance  of  order 
too,  and  that  her  little  morning  room,  where  they  passed 
most  of  their  time,  should  have  its  own  conventionality 
and  dignity.  In  the  past  months  her  loveliness,  without 
any  loss  of  quality,  had  inevitably  become  more  suggestive 
of  her  experiences ;  now  Morte  appeared  to  finish  the 
history  registered  in  her  by  adding  a  touch  of  austerity 
to  her  demeanour,  and  she  moved  with  something  of  the 
old  tread  of  her  race. 

It  was  not  one  of  her  weaknesses  that  she  hesitated 
over  the  fulfilment  of  her  bargains,  and  Irish  was  never 
to  know  the  intimate  misery  it  had  cost  her  to  leave  a  city. 
In  spite  of  all  her  courage  she  had  hours  of  longing  for 
a  life  where  the  conditions  were  more  nearly  the  arti- 
ficial ones  she  best  understood,  and  when  she  felt  the 
need  of  an  audience  to  see  the  elegance  with  which  she 
trailed  and  swept  about  the  gardens.  But  her  sense  of 
fitness  held,  and  she  refused  as  inappropriate  Irish's 
vague  attempts  to  change  the  routine  of  things.  Of 
course  she  couldn't  have  people  to  stop  with  her;  first 
of  all,  let  him  think  of  the  only  people  who  would  come, 
and  fancy  the  result !  This  was  of  course  not  America, 
but  neither  was  it  France,  he  must  remember.  It  was 
not  enough  to  say  it  was  her  house ;  any  one  with  half  an 
eye  knew  it  wasn't — she  herself  knew  it  wasn't,  and  that 
was  enough.  She  would  never  receive  people  under 
false  pretences;  that  was  vulgar,  and  whatever  she  did 
she  would  disdain  vulgarity. 

Irish  honestly  tried  to  solve  the  question.  He  had 
found  her  one  morning,  musing  amongst  the  rich  moist 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    225 

scents  of  the  rose  garden,  which  had  now  all  the  splen- 
dour of  June,  and  her  idleness  and  her  listlessness  had 
suddenly  brought  before  him  the  pathos  of  her  immola- 
tion. "Very  well,  then,  if  you  don't  want  to  try  people — 
though  there  are  dozens  I  could  bring  down — why  not 
interest  yourself  in  something  here?  We  can  build  a 
little  glass  house  and  you  can  grow  orchids.  I'll  see 
the  head  man  about  it." 

"Ah,  Arthur,  how  can  you  speak  to  me  of  such  things ! 
Look!  Is  Morte  the  modern  English  house,  or  even  the 
modern  old  English  house  ?  It  is  grave,  sweet,  silent ;  and 
can  I  put  orchids  here?  How  horrible,  how  incon- 
gruous !" 

"It's  all  very  well  to  say  horrible  and  incongruous 
while  I'm  here  to  cheer  you;  but  what  on  earth  is  to 
happen  when  I  go?  I  can't,  you  know,"  he  ended,  un- 
aware of  his  own  gradual  change  of  front,  "indefinitely 
stay." 

She  turned  her  soft  bright  eyes  on  him.  "I  know ;  of 
course  not;  I  am  quite  ready  to  have  you  go." 

"But  what  is  to  amuse  you?  Can  you  endlessly  do 
nothing?" 

"I  have  agreed  to  a  life  which  condemns  me  to  do 
nothing." 

Irish  flung  himself  back  in  his  garden  chair,  with  a 
touch  of  annoyance.  "The  way  you  seem  to  think  it 
all  out!" 

Her  lips  lifted  in  the  lightest  smile,  scarcely  as  much  a 
smile  as  a  recollection  which  she  took  with  a  light  wit. 
"And  can  you  Americans  never  understand  that — not 
even  you,  who  are  the  American  without  any  America? 


226    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

But  of  course,  my  dear ;  how  foolish  I  should  be  if  I  did 
not  think  it  all  out!" 

"And  you  foresaw  that  you'd  sit  with  your  hands  folded 
for  the  rest  of  your  days?" 

"I  foresaw  that  I  should  from  time  to  time  learn  that 
I  am  too  good — "  she  hesitated — "for  what  I  have  done. 
One  is  what  one  is,  after  all."  Her  shrug  conveyed  to 
him  the  inaccessibility  of  the  caste  to  which  she  belonged. 

"I  wonder,"  said  Irish  abruptly,  "if  you're  much 
changed !" 

"You  mean  by  all  this  affair  ?    Ah,  yes ;  immensely." 

"How?" 

She  watched  one  of  the  white  peacocks  trail  from  the 
turf  to  the  path  and  back  to  the  turf  again.  Her  pauses 
had  protracted  themselves  since  she  came  to  Morte,  and 
she  raised  one  hand  and  held  it  between  the  sun  and 
her  eyes  before  she  spoke,  noting  the  effect  of  the  light 
upon  the  fine  creamy  skin.  "It  brings  a  tremendous 
change  to  a  woman,"  she  finally  said,  "to  know  that  she 
can  create  the  happiness  I  can  create  for  you." 

"My  dear,  you're  wonderful — there's  no  doubt  of 
that." 

"One  does  not  make  a  man  feel  such  deep  things  and 
remain  the  same." 

"There's  the  marvel  of  you  European  women :  you  do 
change,  you  do  feel.  And  you,  above  all  and  above  every 
one."  He  released  the  hand  he  held.  "Yet  I  still  don't 
see  what  you're  to  do  when  I'm  gone." 

"I  am  to  enjoy  the  emotion  of  waiting  for  you,"  she 
retorted  lightly. 

"Emotion !"  he  echoed,  giving  her  back  her  own  tone 
of  banter;  and  he  was  surprised  to  see,  for  the  second 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     227 

time  during  the  talk  and  because  of  his  exclamation,  that 
the  touch  of  some  swift  memory  again  passed  across  her 
face.  Her  eyes  darkened  under  it,  and  she  turned  in 
her  chair  and  caught  his  arm.  "Arthur,  do  you  realise 
what  it  means  ?  That  every  line  of  our  life  together  has 
been  written  with  all  that  was  best  in  me,  and  yet  that 
some  day 'it  will  be  finished?" 

"There,  I  warned  you !"  Irish  exclaimed  impatiently ; 
"that's  the  trouble  of  living  in  the  country!  It  makes 
people  hysterical." 


XXIII 

ANNE-MARIE    paused    for    a    moment,    looking 
mutely  at  the  card  she  held. 

She  was  conscious  that  the  footman  waited  in  the  door- 
way behind  her  and  of  his  covert  observation,  in  spite 
of  the  immobility  with  which  he  stood  and  the  correctness 
with  which  he  held  his  silver  tray.  To  see  that  every 
minor  form  of  finish  was  observed  at  Morte  had  been 
one  of  the  efforts  of  her  pride,  and  the  sense  that  every- 
thing was  smoothly  and  carefully  conducted,  even  down 
to  the  routine  of  the  servants,  had  helped  to  give  her  a 
sense  of  order.  But  in  these  moments  she  seemed  for  the 
first  time  to  feel  the  futility  of  any  of  the  outward  signs 
of  convention  in  the  midst  of  so  palpable  an  infringement 
of  all  larger  rules.  To  read  the  name  on  the  card  she 
held,  "La  baronne  von  Alfons,"  surmounted  by  the 
princess's  crown  which  was  her  cousin's  by  birth,  meant 
scarcely  so  much  that  Mimi  had  looked  her  up  and  had 
managed  to  find  her  as  the  strangeness  of  the  fact  that 


228     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

this  should  be  the  first  visitor  to  Morte  who  had  a  definite 
place  in  the  world  of  accepted  conventionalities. 

When  she  passed  through  the  doors  of  the  largest 
drawing  room,  which  the  servants  ceremoniously  opened 
for  her,  the  impression  deepened.  It  was  the  first  time 
she  had  received  any  one  here ;  perhaps  this  accounted  for 
the  fact  that  Madame  von  Alfons  had  not  been  taken  to 
a  smaller  and  more  intimate  room  and  showed  that  the 
servants  too,  in  their  way,  felt  it  a  pity  not  to  put  the 
magnificence  of  the  house  to  some  use.  The  sun  of  the 
mild  July  morning  slanted  down  the  long  room  and 
brightened  the  gilt  of  the  consoles  and  the  luminous 
beauty  of  the  series  of  Romneys,  hung  on  walls  from 
which  they  had  never  been  disturbed.  Madame  von 
Alfons'  small  figure,  isolated  in  so  large  a  space,  and  her 
own,  as  she  advanced  down  the  room,  struck  her  as  fitting 
such  elegance.  Yet  as  she  caught  her  cousin's  hands  and 
touched  her  cheek  with  her  lips,  she  felt  that  her  face 
had  warmed  to  a  pink  glow.  "Chtre  Mimi,  and  you  man- 
aged to  find  me — !" 

"Mais,  ma  toute  belle,  it  was  not  so  difficult  to  man- 
age!" her  cousin  returned  lightly.  She  had  raised  her 
veil  for  their  kiss  and  her  dark  eyes,  fixed  searchingly  on 
Anne-Marie,  continued  the  play  of  their  curiosity  when 
they  were  seated,  side  by  side,  on  one  of  the  old  sofas. 
"You've  somewhat  concealed  yourself,  it  is  true;  but," 
she  turned  to  the  room,  "one  doesn't  conceal  things  like 
this!" 

"It  was  charming  of  you,  charming,"  Anne-Marie 
supplemented  hurriedly.  "No,  of  course  you  have  heard 
— of  course  you  have  divined;  I  recognise  that.  One 
does  one's  best  to  be  correct,"  she  felt  her  cheeks  a 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     229 

deeper  shade.  "But  there  are,  after  all,  things  so  beyond 
concealment " 

"Certainly — in  the  country  and  in  England !"  Madame 
von  Alfons'  shoulders  rose.  "Beyond  concealment,  per- 
haps ;  and  yet  they  don't  dare  to  talk  openly  of  what  they 
admit  is  beyond  concealment.  What  a  race!  We're  at 
Kingston,  Ruprecht  and  I,  with  Lady  Scotton.  She  knew 
the  Morevens,  who  owned  Morte,  and  of  course  she  knew 
and  knows  every  one  and  everything  else.  There  you 
are.  I  had  my  own  information,  besides ;  so  this  morn- 
ing I  made  up  my  mind  to  contrive  to  slip  off  and  come 
to  you."  She  saw  that  Anne-Marie  winced  at  the  sug- 
gestions of  her  phrase,  and  with  a  wave  of  her  thin  brown 
hand  she  motioned  to  the  walls.  "Ah,  my  dear,  what 
pictures,  what  a  house,  what  a  room !  But  it  is  unbeliev- 
able, what  these  Americans  do!  They've  even  mastered 
discriminations,  it  appears.  Allans!  You  have  travelled 
some  distance  in  the  past  year!  But  that  it's  brought 
you  here,  one  so  well  understands !" 

"Ah!"  Anne-Marie  put  the  sound  of  her  dramatic 
instinct  into  the  exclamation.  "But  does  one?  Does 
one  understand  anything — except  that  everything  must 
be  bought  and  paid  for?" 

"Yes,  that  of  course  is  clear.  But  since,  after  your 
catastrophe,  you  were  offered  so  charming  an  arrange- 
ment— and  by  a  person  who,  as  I  am  told,  is  very  sym- 
pathetic  " 

"Mr.  Irish  is  exquisite,  exquisite" ;  Anne-Marie  remem- 
bered to  have  heard  the  term  employed  under  similar 
conditions,  at  home  in  France,  and  to  find  herself  using 
it  gave  her  for  an  instant  an  odd  sense  of  identity  with 
Madame  von  Alfons'  own  methods.  "But  as  you  your- 


230    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

self  know,"  she  supplemented — "enfin,  one  can  only  re- 
peat it :  things  must  be  bought  and  paid  for." 

"And  one's  cleverness  conies,"  her  visitor  returned, 
with  a  sudden  depth  to  a  smile  which  was  a  little  worn, 
"in  choosing  the  most  agreeable  payments?  I  myself,  if 
I  were  your  age  again — ah !  but  if  I  were!  If  you  asked 
me,  I  should  say — "  her  glance  passed  from  the  cloissone 
on  the  table  at  Anne-Marie's  elbow  to  the  grey  pearl 
which  hung  at  her  throat — "if  you  asked  me,  my  dear,  I 
should  say  you  had  made  everything  pay  for  itself  very 
well!" 

"It  has  all  been  charming — yes."  Anne-Marie  bent  her 
head  in  acquiescence.  The  quick  change  and  interchange 
of  her  thoughts  held  her  for  a  moment.  She  was  aware 
of  yielding  to  the  stir  of  an  inner  rebellion.  Something 
in  her  cousin's  affectionate  imperviousness  woke  in  her 
an  attitude  of  antagonism.  "But  the  most  charming 
things  have  their  disadvantages;  and  mine,  if  I  may  say 
so,  have  ceased  to  be  disadvantages  which  would  appear 
disadvantages  to  you." 

Madame  von  Alfons'  smile  appeared  to  follow  the  look 
she  again  sent  around  her.  "Yes?  Our  sense  of  dis- 
advantage has  come  to  differ,  you  think?  And  do  you 
remember,  perhaps,  the  last  time  we  met?  Do  you 
remember  your  life  in  an  hotel  in  New  York  with  any 
pleasure  ?" 

"You  were  very  good  to  me,  chere  Mimi — you  showed 
me  then  every  consideration " 

"But  I  show  you  a  different  consideration  now  ?  That 
offends  you  a  little?  And  why  should  I  not?  My  poor 
child,  you  were  then  in  a  position  which  was  unfortunately 
false." 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

Anne-Marie's  lips  tightened.  "And  my  position 
now " 

"Ah,  yes!  But  there  are  false  positions  which  are 
recognised  and  there  are  false  positions  which  are  merely 
vague  and  deplorable.  That,  I  am  sure,  you  will  acknowl- 
edge." Madame  von  Alfons'  even  tones  paused.  "Look, 
if  you  prefer,  at  me.  A  divorce,  a  legal  separation — 
enfin,  they  have  both  always  seemed  to  me  things  one 
does  not  permit  one's  self.  A  woman  who  is  in  such  a 
situation  has  neither  the  consolation  of  marriage  nor  the 
freedom  of  impropriety.  You  have  chosen  the  freedom 
of  impropriety.  I — ah,  well,  one's  arrangements  must 
vary  according  to  circumstances.  Both  Ruprecht  and  I 
have  always  observed  what  we  had  to  observe.  When  he 
told  me,  for  example,  that  he  had  banking  interests  in 
common  with  Lord  Scotton,  it  was  obviously  my  duty  to 
come  to  England  with  him ;  it  was  obviously  dans  le  ton, 
was  it  not?  I  had  planned  a  charming  trip  of  my  own, 
too.  It  is  such  a  delightful  freedom  that  one  can  travel 
without  comment  nowadays,  a  I'Americaine.  First  I  was 
going  to  my  cure — j'avais  a  me  soigner  un  peu;  and  then 
I  planned  to  go  off  with  young  Gaston  Morbery,  on  his 
yacht — ah,  a  charming  party " 

"But  it  is  just  there  that  you  do  not  quite  see !"  Anne- 
Marie  interposed  quickly.  "There  is  where  we  differ.  I 
accept  the  difficulties  of  my  declassement — yes,  I  must 
accept  them.  But  I  have  learned — "  she  felt  the  rise  of 
her  agitation — "I  have  learned  that  one  cannot  so  cal- 
culate and  arrange  feeling !  One  has  got,  at  moments,  to 
surrender  everything  to  it." 

Mimi's  face  showed  the  clearest  astonishment.  "But 
surely,  ma  petite,  you  have  not  pretended  not  to  yield 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

to  your  feeling !  Your  presence  here,  your  relation  with 
Mr.  Irish " 

"But  my  relation  with  Mr.  Irish  is  just  what  I  have 
calculated.  It  was  in  my  relation  with  my  husband — it 
was  even  in  my  parting  with  him — that  I  let  myself  be 
governed  by  feeling.  Yes! — It  sounds  ridiculous  to  you 
that  one's  marriage  should  be  like  that,  but  that  is  the 
truth.  For  Mr.  Irish  I  have  planned  and  arranged ;  but 
for  my  husband  it  was  different.  We  were  unhappy, 
exceedingly  unhappy."  She  hesitated.  "But  there  it  is. 
When  one  has  dealt  with  such  a  man  one  becomes  inca- 
pable of  petty  calculations — yes,  I  tell  you  one  becomes 
incapable  of  them!" 

She  was  looking  beyond  her  cousin's  neat  black  head 
to  the  open  window,  where  she  could  see  the  soft  play  of 
the  sunlight  on  the  walks  of  the  garden.  For  a  second 
the  refraction  of  the  tears  in  her  eyes  made  everything 
a  bright  blue.  The  pressure  of  her  restrictions  and  her 
loneliness  were  as  vivid  to  her  as  if  they  had  visibly 
enclosed  her.  It  had  often  struck  her,  of  late,  as  one 
of  the  most  unaccountable  turns  of  chance  that  she  should 
owe  these  sudden  sensitivenesses  in  herself  to  Gushing. 
She  knew  how  little  he  had  left  behind  him,  in  her  inner 
feeling,  which  she  could  honestly  regret.  Yet  she  more 
and  more  understood  the  contagion  of  his  points  of  view 
and  the  lasting  quality  of  some-  of  the  visions  to  which 
he  had  opened  her  eyes.  He  had  shown  her  refinements 
of  attitude  and  of  the  imagination.  Her  difficulty  was, 
as  she  granted,  with  a  quick  sigh,  that  she  had  not  been 
able  to  forget  them. 

She  found  Madame  von  Alfons'  eyes  set  on  her,  when 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     233 

she  turned,  with  a  touch  of  shrewdness  in  their  bland 
courtesy. 

"Ah,  yes.  Mr.  Gushing  was  of  course  a  man  asses 
rare.  That  one  saw.  His  character,  his  quality — such 
things  do  not  easily  repeat  themselves.  But  since  you 
sacrificed  them " 

"Yes ;  since  I  sacrificed  them,  I  sacrificed  them.  And 
now  you  will  tell  me  so  many  things  I  want  to  know; 
tante  Louise  has  been  ill,  yes?  I  read  it  in  the  papers. 
And  your  children — chers  anges!  Donne-moi  done  de 
leurs  nouvelles " 

She  sent  for  a  garden  hat  and  a  sunshade  when  Mimi, 
with  a  sigh,  said  that  though  her  hosts  ate  only  cold  food 
in  the  middle  of  the  day,  and  that  while  they  stood  about 
talking,  she  must  nevertheless  start  on  her  way  back  to 
Kingston  House.  They  strolled  together  down  the  wide 
expanse  of  the  park,  Anne-Marie  noting  all  the  while 
the  incongruous  sound  of  their  quick  French  under  the 
oaks,  to  the  lower  gate,  where,  Madame  von  Alfons  im- 
plied, some  conveyance  would  await  her.  Anne-Marie 
had  noticed  the  shade  of  reserve  in  the  statement  and 
her  pride  had  forbidden  her  to  question  it.  She  had 
planned  to  bid  her  cousin  good-bye  when  they  reached 
the  lodge;  and  they  had  just  paused,  for  a  last  word, 
when  Madame  von  Alfons'  name  was  called  from  the 
opening  of  the  drive,  and,  as  the  gate  swung,  they  came 
face  to  face  with  a  knot  of  people  in  the  road. 

This  entrance  to  Morte  gave  upon  the  nearest  way 
to  the  village,  and  the  cottages  were  scattered  thinly, 
with  wide  spaces  between  each.  Yet  a  little  crowd  of 
people  had  gathered,  around  the  figure  of  a  lady  who 


234    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

now  detached  herself  from  their  midst  and  approached 
Anne-Marie  and  her  cousin.  The  deference  of  the  vil- 
lagers and  their  evident  desire  to  fulfil  her  instructions 
had  struck  Anne-Marie  no  less  instantly  than  the  lady's 
appearance.  Her  quick  ease,  her  simplicity  and  her  car- 
riage combined  to  make  the  declaration  of  a  life  and  a 
position  always  beyond  question.  As  she  began  to  speak 
her  graciousness  had  the  perfection  of  a  natural  assur- 
ance. This  was  Madame  du  Chastel,  wasn't  it?  She'd 
heard  Madame  von  Alfons  say  so;  and  she,  she  must 
explain,  was  Lady  Scotton,  who  lived  at  Kingston.  She'd 
been  waiting  in  the  road,  and  five  minutes  before  a  dray 
had  passed,  and  before  she  could  rescue  him  it  had  run 
over  her  poor  dog's  leg.  He  was  an  Irish  terrier,  Anne- 
Marie  would  see,  and  they  were  such  fun  and  so  amusing ! 
She  had  sent  her  carriage  on  to  the  veterinary's ;  but  he 
lived  well  out  on  the  Branksome  road,  and  here  was  poor 
Patrick,  only  as  comfortable  as  they  had  been  able  to 
make  him  on  the  grass.  Would  Anne-Marie  be  willing 
to  give  her  a  helping  hand?  If  she  could  borrow  a  pony 
carriage — since  the  village  wagonettes  weren't  the  perfec- 
tion of  comfort — she  and  Madame  von  Alfons  could 
drive  the  dog  home  without  waiting  for  the  veterinary. 
How  fortunate,  since  it  had  to  happen,  that  it  had  hap- 
pened in  this  place!  "I  had  agreed,  you  see,"  she  ex- 
plained, with  charming  frankness,  "to  meet  your  cousin 
here." 

She  let  her  light  smile  make  her  plea  for  her;  and  as 
she  ended  Anne-Marie  was  already  aware  of  just  how 
crucial  the  moment  was.  The  curiosity  of  the  knot  of 
listening  spectators  was  as  vivid  as  a  touch,  and  for  the 
first  time  she  felt  concentrated  upon  herself  the  malice  of 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     235 

the  neighbourhood.  She  had  never  admitted  to  Irish  how 
careful  she  had  been  in  regard  to  the  villagers  and  how 
sensitive  she  was  to  their  hostility.  Her  situation  was 
beyond  defence — they  knew  it  from  the  servants  in  her 
household;  and  she  had  been  only  too  thankful  that 
respect  for  the  size  of  Irish's  fortune  had  made  them  at 
least  outwardly  apathetic.  It  was  an  occasion  when  her 
first  care  was  to  maintain  every  outpost  of  dignity.  She 
took  her  time,  closing  her  sunshade  slowly,  as  she  spoke, 
and  fixing  her  direct  look  upon  Lady  Scotton. 

"Certainly — but  I  shall  be  delighted."  She  turned  to 
the  lodge  keeper.  "You  will  order  something  from  the 
stables  immediately — yes?  My  pony  carriage  will  be 
the  best.  The  motion  is  very  easy,  and  I  do  not  think 
the  dog  will  feel  it." 

"But  really  you're  too  kind;  and  poor  Madame  von 
Alfons,  who'll  be  late  for  her  luncheon !" 

Anne-Marie  returned  her  look  steadily.  "Or  there  is 
sure  to  be  something  fairly  comfortable — is  there  not? — 
at  the  rectory.  I  do  not  know,  of  course,  but  it  seems 
likely  that  they  have  a  good  carriage;  and  you  can  send 
my  man  on  there  to  borrow  that,  if  you  prefer." 

"No,  no;  it's  a  pleasure  to  be  indebted  for  such  a 
kindness  to  you."  Lady  Scotton  hesitated  for  an  in- 
stant. "I  saw  you  in  the  village  one  day — just  in  the 
distance.  But  I  didn't  realise  then,"  she  put  it  easily, 
"that  you  were  the  lady  who  lives  at  Morte." 

"Yes ;  I  live  at  Morte,"  returned  Anne-Marie  gravely. 
Their  exchange  of  words  had  passed  rapidly,  but  she  was 
keenly  aware  that  she  had  kept  her  self-possession  intact. 
She  could  feel  that  the  slim  rigour  of  her  attitude  had 
made  its  impression,  and  that  both  her  cousin's  thoughtful 


236     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

appraisal  and  the  curious  glances  of  the  little  crowd  had 
to  admit  that  she  was  leaving  all  the  advances  to  her  com- 
panion. Lady  Scotton  again  apologised  to  Madame  von 
Alfons  for  the  delay,  and  then  dispersed  the  people  around 
her.  "Thanks,  but  you  needn't  wait,  since  Madame  du 
Chastel's  good  enough  to  see  to  it  that  we  get  home."  She 
turned  back  to  Anne-Marie  again,  with  her  smile.  "This 
devotion  in  our  villagers  must  be  accepted  as  one  of  our 
institutions,  you  see.  You're  of  course  French — like  your 
cousin  ?" 

"Yes;  I  am  French." 

"And  Morte;  you  like  Morte?" 

"But  I  admire  and  revere  it."  Anne-Marie  yielded  a 
little  of  her  reserve.  "No?  Is  it  not  stupendous?" 

"Oh,  I've  adored  Morte  ever  since  I  was  tiny.  It  was 
always  our  plan,  my  husband's  and  mine,  that  we  should 
buy  it;  but  the  Morevens  asked  such  a  sum,  and  we've 
our  growing  boys  to  start  in  the  world.  I'm  only  so 
glad — "  she  risked  the  dangerous  ground — "that  you're 
there,  if  you  too  love  it." 

"It's  a  great  privilege — that  I  know."  Anne-Marie 
turned.  "Ah !  And  there  is  my  carriage ;  you  see — at 
the  turn  of  the  drive?" 

Lady  Scotton  paused  uncertainly.  "I  see.  But  if 
Madame  von  Alfons  is  willing — and  since  I  know  your 
stables  are  so  near — wouldn't  it  perhaps  be  better  to 
drive  poor  Pat  there  ?  Perhaps  one  of  your  men  can  see 
to  him  temporarily,  and  I  could  go  on  to  the  house  with 
you  and  telephone  home  for  a  motor." 

"Of  course  it  is  as  you  prefer."  Anne-Marie's  chin 
rose  a  little  higher.  "But  since  the  carriage  is  here  and 
the  veterinary  will  be  following  you " 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    237 

"You  think  we'd  better  not?" 

Anne-Marie  made  a  brief  gesture.  "I  should  say  you 
had  better  not."  Her  tone  was  as  courteous  as  possible. 
But  it  plainly  declared  that  she  would  do  nothing  to  put 
upon  so  charming  a  person,  almost  old  enough  to  be  her 
mother,  a  sense  of  obligation  too  awkward  in  that  it  could 
not  be  acquitted.  She  would  permit  no  slightest  mis- 
apprehension concerning  her  own  indignity. 

The  friendliness  of  Lady  Scotton's  eyes,  however,  and 
the  kindness  of  her  smile  continued  to  confront  her  and 
appeared  to  assure  her  that  in  a  life  in  which  knowledge 
of  the  world  had  been  a  foregone  conclusion  there  was 
some  understanding  of  such  situations.  A  wide  experi- 
ence had  evidently  shown  her  how  rare  it  was  to  have  to 
couple  a  young  woman,  of  a  delicacy  of  refinement  which 
verged  on  frailness,  with  suggestions  of  impropriety.  The 
older  woman  was  plainly  thinking  how  far  cleverer  and 
more  delightful  she  looked  than  some  of  the  coarsened 
creatures  who  keep  their  scandals  attenuated  to  the  point 
of  passing  muster.  As  she  turned  to  get  into  the  carriage, 
where  Madame  von  Alfons  had  preceded  her  and  where 
the  dog  was  laid,  she  held  Anne-Marie's  hand  warmly  for 
a  second  and  her  look  softened  to  a  deeper  sympathy. 
"My  dear  child,"  she  seemed  to  say,  "how  ridiculous  that 
I  simply  can't  be  friends  with  you!" 

Anne-Marie  betrayed  her  sense  of  the  unspoken  words 
by  a  touch  of  embarrassment.  "It  has  been  such  a  pleas- 
ure— to  be  able  to  help  you,"  she  said  hastily. 

"I  do  thank  you,  again  and  again ;  you've  been  charm- 
ing," Lady  Scotton  hesitated;  "and  perhaps — I  never 
know  our  plans,  but  perhaps  sometime,  when  we're  at 
Kingston — but  we  go  there  so  irregularly,  and  principally 


238     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

in  winter !  You  know  we  English  so  ridiculously  reverse 
our  seasons!" 

Anne-Marie  appeared  to  recognise  the  hopelessness  of 
the  difficulty,  and  she  turned  to  Madame  von  Alfons. 
"Done,  Mimi — you  go  to  Deauville  and  then  to  Baden? 
And  you  will  write — yes?"  She  drew  back.  "The 
groom  has  the  necessary  orders.  I  hope  everything  will 
go  well  and  that  the  leg  will  be  quite  healed  soon." 

"Thanks  once  more.  You  see  how  it  was — and  he's 
such  a  dear,  this  puppy."  Lady  Scotton  let  her  regret 
show  plainly:  "I  am  so  grateful;  and  some  day — let  us 
at  least  say  au  revoir!" 

Anne-Marie  shook  her  head  lightly  and  the  intelligence 
of  her  smile  put  an  end  to  any  uncertainty.  ''Adieu, 
madame,"  she  responded. 


XXIV 

ANNE-MARIE  had  walked  slowly  through  the  park 
and  back  to  the  house,  with  her  eyes  absently  fol- 
lowing the  quiver  of  the  light  which  penetrated  through 
the  foliage  to  the  close  short  turf.  It  frequently  struck 
her  that  she  had  no  one  to  hurry  for  and  no  engagements 
to  keep.  She  could  foresee  the  sequences  of  each  day 
exactly — first  her  silent  luncheon,  and  then  the  drowsy 
hours  of  the  afternoon,  lengthening  imperceptibly  into 
the  endless  summer  evening.  There  was  always  the  acci- 
dental chance  of  Irish's  arrival,  since  lately  he  had  come 
and  gone  without  warning  and  as  his  engagements  per- 
mitted. It  had  been  part  of  her  scheme  in  coming  to 
Morte  that  this  uncertainty  should  make  their  happiness, 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    239 

while  they  were  together,  brighter  and  more  vivid  for 
them  both.  She  had  foreseen  the  necessary  reactions  of 
loneliness  in  his  absences,  and  she  had  contrived  to  meet 
them  with  spirit.  But  she  was  to-day  more  than  ever 
conscious  that  her  loneliness  did  not  only  mean  her 
loneliness  for  him.  Her  talk  with  her  cousin  had  stirred 
in  her  an  instinctive  defence  of  the  less  crass  aspect  of 
her  situation.  Yet  something  in  her  encounter  with  Lady 
Scotton  had  turned  her  back,  and  had  shown  her  how 
inexorably  people  were  bound,  if  not  by  Mimi's  frank 
materialism,  at  least  by  the  laws  of  conventionality. 

Lady  Scotton's  trust  of  her — a  trust  so  concrete  that 
she  would  even  have  risked  being  seen  to  go  in  to  Morte 
— had  not  only  reminded  her  of  the  world  to  which  she 
rightfully  belonged.  She  had  also  realised  what  a  person 
who  kept  up  appearances,  even  to  so  questionable  an 
extent  as  Madame  von  Alfons  kept  them  up,  could  gain. 
It  was  not  so  much  Lady  Scotton  herself  who  had  struck 
her  as  important,  except  as  she  had  the  seasoned  charm 
which  privilege  produces.  Anne-Marie  could  imagine 
how  she  would  continue  to  live,  with  her  simplicity  as 
distinguished  and  with  all  the  prejudices  of  her  imper- 
meable type,  even  down  to  her  sentimental  love  of  ani- 
mals. She  might  never  be  brilliant,  but  the  very  restric- 
tions of  such  a  woman  were  brilliant.  It  was  the  knowl- 
edge that  these  same  rights  were  hers  which  gave  Anne- 
Marie  the  strongest  distaste  she  had  yet  had  for  her  own 
indignity.  She  could  not  so  obscure  facts  as  to  think 
that  her  happiness  with  Irish  was  a  consolation  for  all  her 
losses;  and  she  had  never  been  so  convinced  that  the 
hardest  penalty  life  exacted  was  displacement  from  one's 
natural  position. 


240     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

As  she  came  into  view  of  the  house  she  saw  a  familiar 
figure  on  the  wide  steps,  and  she  realised  that,  by  an  odd 
coincidence,  Irish  had  arrived.  She  spared  an  exclama- 
tion of  thankfulness  to  the  fact  that  his  motor  must  have 
entered  by  the  main  drive  and  that  his  meeting  with  Lady 
Scotton  and  her  guest  had  thus  been  avoided.  Since  the 
older  woman  had  managed  everything  else  so  well,  she 
could  also  have  managed  such  a  contingency.  Mimi,  she 
was  sure,  had  openly  hoped  to  see  him  and  had  been  dis- 
appointed not  to  find  him  at  Morte  during  her  visit.  It 
was  she  herself  who  would  have  been  the  one  to  pay,  and 
again  because  of  her  latent  and  tormenting  sensitiveness. 
As  she  watched  Irish  stroll  towards  her,  with  his  hands 
in  his  pockets,  his  head  bare,  and  with  the  greeting  of 
his  quizzical  smile,  she  suddenly  felt  the  uselessness  of 
her  elaborate  processes  with  him.  The  bare  facts,  as 
they  existed — the  knowledge  of  other  people's  knowledge, 
the  consciousness  that  not  a  thing  she  wore  did  not  in 
reality  belong  to  him — were  enough  to  repudiate  the  con- 
sistency of  her  refinement.  Even  in  the  last  and  most 
intimate  outposts  of  her  character,  she  must  remember 
that  she  had  been  hurt:  once  she  might  not  have 
known  what  the  term  defined,  but  now  she  knew  that  it 
meant  that  she  had  accepted  the  pleasure  without  the 
payment  and  the  temporary  without  an  honourable  regard 
for  the  permanent.  She  stood  abruptly  still,  under  the 
last  fringe  of  trees,  with  Irish  only  a  few  feet  from  her. 
Could  it  in  reality  be  she  who  was  elaborating  all  these 
morbid  delicacies?  The  fact  that  they  existed  in  her 
could  not,  after  all,  obscure  the  concrete  fact  that  Morte 
stood  there  in  front  of  her,  at  her  service,  and  that  the 
touch  of  Irish's  arm,  as  he  passed  it  through  her  own, 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    241 

was  more  important  than  all  these  transmitted  signifi- 
cances. Even  Mimi  had  not  her  jewels  and  Lady  Scotton 
had  not  Morte:  she  supposed,  with  the  lift  of  her  eye- 
brows which  was  her  sign  of  resignation,  that  she  must 
accept  the  vulgarity  of  such  a  reflection  because  of  the 
consolation  it  gave  her. 

The  morning  had  left  a  shadow  of  thought  in  her  eyes, 
and  when  they  went  for  a  long  motor  drive,  late  in  the 
afternoon,  her  responses  to  Irish's  account  of  what  he 
had  been  doing  were  absent  and  disconnected.  He  was 
as  usual  frankly  full  of  himself,  and  she  had  to  hear  about 
his  last  trip  to  Paris,  a  few  days  before,  and  to  give  her 
attention  as  best  she  could  to  the  description  of  some 
fifteenth  century  glass  which  he  had  run  down.  When 
he  finally  registered  her  mood  she  felt  that  his  protest, 
if  it  were  affectionate,  was  also  characteristic.  "But 
you're  not  depressed !  Don't  be  depressed — it's  so  trying. 
And  I've  brought  you  another  string  of  pearls  from  town 
— there !  I'd  meant  to  keep  them  for  your  birthday,  but 
you  shall  have  them  now." 

She  turned  with  a  quick  sigh  from  her  contemplation 
of  the  country  which  streamed  past  them.  "Pearls ! 
But  it  is  barbarous,  the  quantity  of  pearls  you  give  me. 
And  how  I  love  them !  Is  it  a  long  string — yes  ?  As  long 
as  the  last  ?  How  delicious !  Voyons,  mon  ami,  I  am  not 
depressed,  but  I  must  talk  business  with  you.  I  need  some 
money — very,  very  much  money;  the  house  costs  such 
a  cruel  sum !" 

"Well,  send  me  the  bills  or  I'll  make  another  deposit 
at  your  bank." 

She  had  a  touch  of  gaiety.  "I  do  make  the  money  go, 
don't  I?" 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"You  do;  the  last  was  for — let  me  see! — furs,  wasn't 
it?" 

"But  that  was  months  ago.  The  last  heavy  expense 
was  lace — the  Mechlin." 

"Oh,  lace!"  Irish  smiled. 

"And  you  yourself  insisted  I  should  buy  it,  so  that 
was  not  my  fault." 

"No,  my  dear,  no;  of  course  not." 

She  was  thoughtful  for  a  moment  and  then  she  spoke 
abruptly.  "Do  you  know  that  I  have  some  money  of  my 
own  ?" 

"Have  you  ?  Oh,  yes — you  told  me.  But  that,  my  poor 
child,  wouldn't  be  enough  to  keep  you  in  cabs — if  you 
went  in  cabs.  Let's  thank  heaven  you  don't  have  to  live 
on  it!" 

"But  I  did,"  she  retorted;  "I  did  live  on  it." 

"When?    How?" 

"Before — at  the  time  I  left  my  husband  and  before  we 
had  decided  on  our  legal  separation." 

"You  lived  on  that  money?    You're  joking!" 

"I  am  absolutely  serious.  I  lived  on  that  money  because 
I  wanted  to  live  on  it.  It  was  intolerable  to  me,  just 
then,  to  take  money  from  Paul." 

"You  mean  to  say  that  Gushing  let  you  ?" 

"No,  no,  no.  He  wanted  to  give  me  anything,  every- 
thing. It  was  I  who  would  not  accept." 

"But  he  owed  it  to  you." 

"He  owed  me  nothing  greater  than  consideration ;  and 
I  had  put  it  to  his  consideration  that  I  did  not  want  to 
accept  money  from  him  just  then." 

"Oh,  come!  It's  not  a  point  of  consideration.  He 
owed  you  the  support  of  a  husband.  You  weren't  legally 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    243 

separated.  To  all  intents  and  purposes  you  were  still 
his  wife.  It  was  like  starving  you!" 

She  flushed  deeply,  under  the  influence  of  her  agi- 
tation. With  a  glance  at  the  roadside  she  saw,  to  her 
relief,  that  the  motor  had  turned  and  that  they  were  go- 
ing in  the  direction  of  Morte.  "Since  it  is  a  matter  which 
is  obviously  difficult  to  discuss " 

"Oh,  discuss  it  or  not,  as  you  please.  All  I  say  is  that 
he  owed  you  support  and  that  you  were  wrong  to  refuse 
it.  If  it  comes  to  that,"  Irish  shrugged  his  shoulders,  "I 
don't  see  why  you  haven't  taken  the  settlement  he  offered 
you  at  the  time  of  your  divorce.  I'm  glad  enough  you 
don't  need  it.  But  considering  there  was  no  question  of 
alimony,  I  don't  see  why  you  shouldn't  have  it.  I'm  sure 
the  lawyers  all  pressed  it  on  you,  when  the  divorce  went 
through." 

"You  believe  I  should  be  receiving  money  from  him 
now  ?"  she  asked  intently,  with  her  eyes  dark  and  bright. 

"I  don't  see  why  not.  You  were  his  wife,  weren't  you? 
For  that  matter  he  owes  you  still — at  this  moment — more 
than  I  do,  since  our  relation,  in  this  stupid  world,  isn't 
legal ;  and  heaven  knows  I'm  glad  enough  to  see  you  fling 
my  money  in  the  gutter." 

"You  really  do  not  see  the  difference  ?  You  do  not  feel 
it  ? — why  I  could  not  take  money  from  him,  and  now  can 
take  it  from  you  ?" 

"No,  I  don't." 

"Very  good;  neither,"  she  said  steadily,  "did  my  hus- 
band understand  it.  But  he  understood  enough  to  accept 
my  wishes  as  his  law." 

Irish  broke  into  impatience.  "Well,  you  French  aren't 
always  so  nice  about  what  you  accept  and  don't  accept !" 


244    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"Do  not  debate  that."  She  drew  herself  up.  "Our 
shop  keepers  and  our  vulgarians  may  have  the  rights  of 
cleverness.  In  my  class  we  perform  what  we  promise, 
we  pay  where  we  gain.  And  I — I  respond  to  my  own 
morality.  I  had  left  my  husband  because  I  could  no 
longer  be  his  wife.  I  had  broken  his  family  life  and  I 
had  broken  his  relation  with  me.  Since  I  refused  to  fulfil 
my  part  of  the  affair,  it  was  intolerable  to  me  that  he 
should  continue  to  support  me.  It  is  true.  Yes,  I  did  it ; 
I  lived  on  my  own  income.  And  now  I  fling  your  money 
in  the  gutter.  Do  I  not  give  you  exchange  for  it?" 
"Talk  exchange  as  much  as  you  please,  but  I'm  right." 
"It  is  unfortunate,  my  dear,  that  you  have  not  a  juster 
view."  She  kept  her  voice  clear  and  cold.  "It  is  neces- 
sary to  coarsen  things  a  little  in  order  that  you  may 
understand  them.  My  husband  had  his  faults,  but  he  saw 
the  spectacle  of  life — he  felt  things ;  and  when  he  really 
felt  he  was  aware  of  the  finest  of  the  fine." 
"All  the  same  he  was  a  cad  not  to  insist." 
"He  understood !"  she  broke  out  hotly.  "He  never 
argued,  he  only  begged.  He  understood !  It  was  between 
him  and  me.  You  will  please  not  call  him  such  names ; 
you  will  please  respect  my  former  life !" 

Irish  recognised  that  it  was  one  of  her  ways  of  making 
amends  to  him  that  she  should  wear  all  her  pearls  for 
dinner  that  evening.  He  had  seen  her  more  intimate  and 
more  winning,  but  never  more  enchanting.  She  seemed 
to  him  to  have  assumed  the  manner  to  correspond  with 
her  splendour.  One  of  her  most  wonderful  qualities,  he 
thought,  was  that  she  could  present  herself  as  different  so 
easily  and — once  their  slight  controversies  were  over — 
without  any  suggestion  of  moodiness  or  caprice.  When 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    245 

they  returned  to  the  library,  after  dinner,  he  was  sur- 
prised to  see  her  draw  her  chair  to  a  lamp  and  begin  to 
sew.  As  a  child  she  had  seen  all  the  women  of  her 
family  make  things  for  their  houses,  she  explained,  and 
she  had  decided  to  make  things  for  Morte.  Irish  had 
never  seen  her  occupied  with  such  tasks  before.  He 
noted  the  fact,  with  some  astonishment,  and  the  pathetic 
incongruity  of  the  picture  she  made,  leaning,  in  her  mag- 
nificence, so  earnestly  over  her  work,  and  with  his 
emerald  flashing  on  her  hand. 


XXV 

FRESNEUIL  had  not  gone  to  Morte  for  two  or  three 
months.  It  was  instinctive  with  him  to  avoid  even 
the  appearance  of  intrusion,  and  while  Irish  himself,  con- 
fronted with  the  question,  would  have  said  that  nothing 
but  his  own  carelessness  had  made  him  omit  to  press  his 
secretary  to  come  down,  now  and  then,  for  a  week-end, 
Fresneuil  had  none  the  less  drawn  his  own  conclusions. 
Since  his  employer  must  have  become  more  accustomed 
to  his  rare  good  fortune,  it  was  natural  that  he  should 
want  to  keep  it  more  to  himself.  Perhaps,  too,  as 
Fresneuil  imagined,  he  wanted  to  keep  its  inevitable 
uncertainties  to  himself.  But  it  was  not  a  situation 
to  be  less  present  in  that  one  did  not  see  its  actual 
development ;  and  it  was  with  all  the  play  of  his  interest 
that  Fresneuil  found  himself,  one  November  afternoon, 
face  to  face  with  the  long  house  front  between  the  grey 
trees,  with  its  mellow  tones  even  mellower  in  the  soft 
autumn  light.  It  drew  between  the  converging  aisles  of 


246    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

thin  bare  birches  a  line  as  beautiful  as  could  be  devised, 
rising  at  each  end  into  fantastic  stacks  of  chimneys.  From 
the  roof  down  to  the  rich  designs  which  culminated  in 
the  central  door  it  composed  a  deeply  harmonious  whole. 
He  had  felt  when  he  first  saw  the  house,  at  the  time 
when  he  was  hunting  places  in  Irish's  interest,  how  emi- 
nently it  fitted  Anne-Marie.  Now,  with  all  that  might 
have  happened  in  the  passage  of  the  months  since  he  had 
seen  her,  he  fancied  that  its  air  of  old  and  profound 
secretiveness  might  have  been  enriched,  in  some  unspoken 
way,  by  what  she  herself  had  experienced. 

He  learned  at  the  door  that  she  had  just  gone  for  her 
afternoon  walk — not  likely  to  take  her  far  from  the  house 
that  day,  she  had  left  word ;  and  a  footman  guided  him 
through  the  resounding  corridors,  still  full  of  the  lifeless 
scent  of  a  house  too  long  closed  on  its  memories,  and 
opened  for  him  a  side  door  which  gave  on  the  park.  As 
Fresneuil  left  first  the  smaller  garden  and  then  the  bowl- 
ing green  behind  him  the  vista  closed;  and  as  soon  as 
he  had  passed  under  the  trees  he  saw  that  just  below 
him  there  ran  the  little  stream  which  made  its  way 
through  the  Morte  woods,  showing  here  and  there  a  glint 
of  water  between  the  overhanging  branches.  He  pushed 
on,  instinctively  aware  that  something  in  the  temper  of 
the  day,  with  all  the  landscape  grey  under  the  threat 
of  rain,  would  draw  Anne-Marie  here,  where  her  thoughts 
could  flow  to  the  steady  murmur  of  the  water;  and  on 
a  bench  so  placed  that  it  faced  a  break  in  the  woods  and 
a  glimpse  of  the  long  wide  plain  which  rose  into  the 
nearest  hills,  he  finally  made  her  out.  He  had  been  right 
in  expecting  the  evident  pensiveness  of  her  mood.  With 
her  head  resting  against  the  tree  behind  her  and  closely 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    247 

huddled  in  her  dark  furs,  she  was  lost  in  her  thoughts. 
As  he  drew  nearer,  his  quick  perception  saw  the  pathetic 
incongruity  of  her  contrast  with  the  bare  scene;  her 
lips  were  glaringly  rouged,  and  a  black  satin  slipper,  with 
a  disproportionately  large  buckle  flashing  on  it,  projected 
from  beneath  her  dress. 

She  turned  at  the  sound  of  his  step,  with  the  alertness 
of  expectancy.  Yet  the  quick  smile  with  which  she 
recognised  him,  as  he  emerged  from  the  path,  showed 
the  faint  relief  of  a  person  for  whom  a  problem  is  tem- 
porarily postponed. 

"Ah,  monsieur,  what  a  surprise!"  she  exclaimed,  as 
she  drew  her  hand  from  her  muff.  "And  what  a  pleas- 
ure !  I  think  you  have  not  been  to  Morte  since  the  early 
summer.  How  do  you  do?" 

Fresneuil  bowed  over  her  hand,  with  more  elaboration 
of  courtesy  than  he  usually  permitted  himself  to  show 
her.  "Mr.  Irish  was  quite  helpless,  madame.  All  morn- 
ing there  was  a  committee,  until  twelve,  and  some  other 
engagements  had  to  be  disposed  of — one  of  those  situa- 
tions beyond  arrangement.  There  was  nothing  for  it 
but  that  he  should  give  it  up ;  so  I  caught  the  twelve  fifty 
from  Waterloo " 

"That  horrible  train!     But  you  have  not  lunched?" 

"Yes — in  a  little  basket,  on  the  train.  Thank  you,  but  I 
had  quite  enough." 

"You  are  sure?" 

"Mon  Dieu,  madame,  it  was  not  food  but  it  was 
sustenance.  It  did  its  best,  and  therefore  I  must  dignify 
it  as  a  meal.  Thank  you,  nothing  more." 

Her  eyes  rested  on  him,  full  of  the  amusement  with 
which  her  smile  could  light  them,  as  if  she  recognised 


248     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

in  him  that  ease  which  was  so  like  her  own  and  which 
could  make  of  banalities  something  gracefully  philosophic. 
"Monsieur,  we  have  infinite  resignation,  nons  autres  fran- 
gais.  Do,  I  beg  you,  sit  down."  She  moved  along  the 
bench  to  make  room  for  him  and  then  settled  back, 
with  a  slight  shiver,  into  the  protection  of  her  furs.  "So! 
And  in  all  these  months  during  which  we  have  not  met, 
how  has  the  world  gone  ?  Or  has  it  perhaps  stood  still  ?" 

Fresneuil  could  smile  as  delicately  as  she;  he  fingered 
his  small  moustache  for  a  moment,  looking  at  her  with 
a  deference  which  implied  also  a  carefully  modulated 
sense  of  their  mutual  comprehension.  "Thank  you,  ma- 
dame;  we  despoil  Europe  and  all  goes  well." 

"You've  found  lately ?" 

His  hands  spread  open  in  a  gesture  like  her  own. 
"Marvels ;  a  Spanish  altar  piece,  and  some  snuff  boxes — 
exquisite  specimens,  with  the  best  Chinoiserie.  They  are 
caught,  landed." 

"And  they  go  to  New  York  ?" 

"Yes." 

"To  be  wondered  at  by  the  privileged  few,  the  ini- 
tiated?" 

"I  take  it  so." 

"Ah,"  she  had  an  abrupt  change  of  tone,  "what  a  coun- 
try, that,  for  those  poor  treasures!" 

Fresneuil  was  nothing  short  of  the  perfection  of  cau- 
tion. "It  is  America  who  pays,  who  demands  the  best, 
who  puts  up  the  value." 

"Value!"  she  exclaimed.  "If  I  could  express  to  you 
how  value  has  come  to  fatigue  me!"  and  she  turned  and 
fixed  her  eyes  on  the  distant  prospect  and  on  the  threat- 
ening clouds. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    249 

With  her  own  look  so  averted  Fresneuil  could  prolong 
the  quick  glance  of  curiosity  he  cast  at  her.  He  was 
wondering  how  far  her  former  sense  of  their  identity  of 
standpoint  still  held.  In  the  past  months  Irish's  constant 
phrase,  when  they  were  together  in  town,  had  been: 
"You  who  know  the  reason  for  these  unaccountable 
tastes,  Fresneuil,  do  this  and  that  for  Madame  du  Chas- 
tel."  Such  an  admission  meant  little  more  than  one  of 
Irish's  usually  vague  recognitions.  But  Fresneuil  had 
never  ceased  to  wonder  whether,  if  he  himself  had  been 
at  Morte,  he  would  have  caught  again  the  half-uncon- 
scious query  of  the  look  Anne-Marie  so  often  turned  to 
him.  He  knew  that  such  signs  of  uncertainty  would  be- 
tray no  lessening  of  her  happiness.  Her  regard  for  his 
opinion  was  one  of  the  signs  of  her  regard  for  all  form. 
She  was  not  the  woman,  he  knew,  to  be  so  absorbed  in 
her  feeling  that  she  did  not  want  to  see  it  properly  con- 
ducted. 

As  she  turned  back  to  him,  he  could  see  that  the  ob- 
viousness of  his  interest  arrested  her  attention. 

"Ah !"  she  exclaimed.  "But  I  forgot  it !  I  forgot  to 
speak  to  you  of  your  change  in  circumstances !" 

"You  are  too  good,  madame." 

"But  yes,  of  course!  Mr.  Irish  told  me  when  he  was 
last  here;  of  your  uncle's  illness  and  death,  and  of  your 
accession  to  his  title  and  his  estates."  She  bent  her 
head.  "For  his  death,  monsieur,  I  offer  you  my  con- 
dolences; for  your  own  good  fortune,  my  felicitations." 

"Thank  you,  madame.     I  value  both." 

"It  is  still,  as  I  understand,  so  very  recent;  you  are 
still — "  her  glance  took  in  the  black  fur  collar  of  his 
black  coat — "in  the  strictest  mourning.  But  you  have 


250    MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

made  your  plans?  Your  circumstances — they  greatly 
change,  do  they  not?" 

"Happily  they  do.  I  am  independent.  I  can  fulfil 
my  obligations  to  my  family." 

"Ah,  but  what  a  vast  happiness !" 

"Vast  indeed,"  Fresneuil  returned  briefly.  He  put  into 
the  words  all  the  accent  which  the  repressing  influences 
of  his  misfortune  had  taught  him.  "I  can  fancy  nothing 
sadder  than  to  have  to  occupy  a  position  whose  dignity 
one  cannot  maintain.  Yes,  I  feel  myself  free.  I  shall 
even  be  able,  in  a  minuscule  way,  to  collect;  not,  you 
understand,  the  thousandth  part  of  what  Mr.  Irish  col- 
lects, but  very  humbly.  There  are  some  charming  things 
in  our  home,  in  the  Chateau  de  la  Reveilliere;  I  hope 
gradually  to  add  to  them." 

"Then  you  leave  Mr.  Irish?" 

"I  am  now  arranging  his  affairs,  in  preparation  for  my 
departure." 

Anne-Marie's  eyes  lingered  on  his,  as  if  to  express  all 
the  friendliness  of  her  interest.  There  seemed  to  her 
something  peculiarly  fitting  in  the  restoration  to  his 
caste  of  a  person  who  had  come  of  her  own  distinguished 
world  and  whom  circumstances  had  maltreated  without 
ever  debasing.  She  had  never  failed  to  notice  the  gal- 
lantry with  which  Fresneuil  had  carried  the  difficulties  of 
his  position,  and  that  even  in  the  face  of  Irish's  insistence 
he  had  contrived  always  to  be  an  artist  and  never  a 
menial.  She  mused  for  a  moment,  with  her  thoughts 
wandering  vaguely  back  to  the  recollections  of  her  child- 
hood. As  she  fancied  the  life  which  would  shortly  re- 
claim her  companion  she  seemed  to  see  before  her  again 
half-forgotten  customs  and  sentiments.  She  sighed 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

quickly.  "And  your  family?  Of  whom  does  it  now 
consist  ?" 

"Quant  a  qa,  there  are  so  few  of  us  left!  My  sister, 
two  aunts,  and  my  mother,  whom  I  adore.  Ah,  madame, 
we  are  the  only  race  aware  of  the  fact  that  no  tie  is  as 
important  as  the  tie  between  mother  and  son ;  and  now  I 
can  feel  that  we  shall  have  our  home  together — that  I 
shall  repossess  them  all " 

She  interposed  with  a  quick  gesture. 

"After  a  life,"  she  said,  with  a  light  scorn,  "of  ex- 
cessive curiosities !" 

Fresneuil's  smile  sympathised  with  her,  but  he  shook 
his  head  as  if  to  restrain  her  exaggeration.  "I  should 
have  seen  less  of  the  world  than  I  have,  madame,  if  I  did 
not  recognise  that  I  shall  miss  the  excessive  curiosities. 
No,  but  admit  it!  One  loves  to  handle  treasures,  and  I 
shall  always  have  a  little  nostalgia  for  a  Rubens  here 
and  a  Goya  there.  These  years  with  Mr.  Irish  would 
indeed  have  failed  if  I  did  not  part  from  them  with  some 
regret." 

She  shook  her  head,  thoughtfully.  "That  is  not  a 
philosophy — it  is  a  resignation.  Must  we  all  come,  a  la 
fin,  to  resignation?  In  spite  of  all  our  gratitude  for 
escape,  in  spite  of  all  our  violence  of  feeling,  shall  we 
always  regret  the  Goyas  and  the  treasures  we  must 
leave  behind?"  She  clasped  her  hands  suddenly.  "But 
what  a  drama  it  is,  after  all !  No,  monsieur — you  permit 
me  to  say  it  to  you? — I  rejoice  infinitely  in  your  good 
fortune.  You  have  too  much  quality  not  to  spend  your 
life  in  living  it.  You  must  belong  to  yourself.  Mr.  Irish 
is  so  exquisite,  so  full  of  feeling,  but  he  could  not  defend 
his  things,  poor  dears,  from  that  hideous  America.  Can  I 


252     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

express  it?  Sometimes  I  have  felt  that  I  wanted  to  go 
to  the  library,  in  New  York,  and  set  those  imprisoned 
creatures  free.  I  have  felt  an  intolerable  impulse  to  help 
them  back  to  their  own  world " 

"You  yourself,  madame — you  sometimes  have  this 
nostalgia  ?" 

"Ah,  if  I  have  it !"  She  was  abruptly  silent.  As 

she  closed  her  lips  she  was  aware  that  her  tone  had 
admitted  the  depth  of  her  distrust  in  her  relationship 
with  Irish,  and  that  she  had  stirred  the  inner  significance 
of  things  as  the  light  cold  wind  stirred  the  leaves  on 
the  path.  The  uncertainties  of  the  past  weeks  pressed 
suddenly  upon  her.  In  the  relief  of  talking,  however 
indirectly,  with  a  person  who  had  her  own  imagination 
and  her  own  sympathies — and,  beyond  that,  a  person  who 
was  about  to  leave  behind  him  the  circumstances  which 
still  confronted  her — her  perplexities  became  acute.  Was 
all  the  brilliancy  of  her  feeling  for  Irish  to  fade  into 
this  longing  to  return  once  more  to  the  restrictive  and 
the  conventional?  At  times  she  and  he  still  had  an 
absolute  correspondence  of  feeling;  but  the  old  sureness 
of  touch  had  gone  in  her  at  the  moment  when  she  had 
felt  the  first  faint  turn  in  the  current  of  their  enthusiasm. 
As  the  autumn  had  come  she  had  had  to  admit  that  her 
hand  shook  a  little  in  the  manipulation  of  their  meetings. 
She  knew  that  her  very  doubts  were  nearer  the  truth 
than  Irish's  decisive  views.  But  her  only  way  to  meet 
the  future,  none  the  less,  was  to  do  nothing,  and  to  absorb 
herself  as  usual  in  changing  her  dresses  and  in  the  rear- 
rangement of  her  hair.  To  think  of  Fresneuil's  departure 
had  given  her  a  sense  of  the  factitiousness  of  her  connec- 
tion here,  with  Morte  and  with  Irish ;  and  as  her  thoughts 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     253 

rose  and  fell  like  the  blowing  leaves,  she  seemed  to  see 
the  trend  of  all  her  life  as  ineffectual  and  misdirected. 
There  had  been  too  perfect  a  conjunction  between  her 
mood  and  Fresneuil's  presence,  and  both  he  and  she  felt 
the  directness  of  her  comment  upon  her  situation  as  she 
roused  herself  and  spoke  again,  in  French.  "What  a  sad 
affair,"  her  gesture  amplified  the  words,  "to  have  missed 
one's  life !" 

"But,  madame,  you  who  have  lived  so  much !" 

"Ah,  so  much,  perhaps,  but  not  so  well !" 

"Could  a  woman  of  your  taste,  of  your  wit,  have  done 
it  anything  but  well?"  He  allowed  himself  the  dangerous 
ground.  "And  then  you  have  lived  such  a  beautiful 
thing!" 

"J'ai  vecu  une  si  belle  chose!"  she  repeated,  and  then, 
with  an  evident  effort,  she  reverted!  to  her  clear  English. 
"Ah,  monsieur,  it  is  not  persons  who  cannot  be  replaced 
in  life!  After  one  has  experience  one  knows  that.  It 
is  the  experience  itself — c'est  la  si  belle  chose,  qu'on 
pleure."  There  was  a  sudden  softness  in  her  eyes.  "C'est 
I' amour  de  I'amour  que  nous  noublions  jamais."  She 
rose  and  pointed  to  her  wraps.  "Come !  Will  you  bring 
these  ?  I  can  at  least  offer  you  an  early  tea,  can  I  not  ?" 

Fresneuil  stood  beside  her,  and  he  bowed  in  answer  to 
her  question.  "Ah,  madame,  if  you  will  give  me  the 
charity  of  tea !" 

Anne-Marie  turned  to  lead  the  way  up  the  little  path. 
"Yes,  we  must  have  tea;  and  you  will  perhaps  stop  to 
dine  with  me.  Who  knows,  when  France  recovers  you, 
when  we  shall  see  you  again !" 

"Enfin,  if  I  have  your  permission " 

"Mais  sif  mais  si.    You  see  there,  between  the  trees — 


254    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

that  is  Corfe,  the  most  enchanting  village  in  England. 
The  castle  you  must  know  of;  it  is  of  a  stupendous  an- 
tiquity, I  believe.  There  happens  to  be  a  Catholic  church 
there,  and  I  go  over  often.  Lately,  I  must  tell  you,"  she 
turned  towards  him,  "I  have  become  more  aware  of  the 
importance  of  my  religious  duties." 

"Yes,  madame  ?    You  have  felt  the  necessity  ?" 

Anne-Marie  stroked  her  muff  with  her  thin  hand.  "I 
have  felt  the  necessity.  You,  I  suppose,  are  croyantf" 

"We  are  all  the  same,  madame,  are  we  not — nous  autres 
fran$ais?" 

Her  smile  came  to  answer  his.  "Ah,  yes,  you  are 
right.  It  is  a  question  of  blood,  of  an  attitude  of  race, 
is  it  not?  Of  course,"  her  smile  faded  and  her  hand  con- 
tinued evenly  to  stroke  her  muff,  "I  have  always  accepted 
our  faith  as  we  all  accept  it.  My  parents  would  have 
seen  to  it  that  I  accepted  it  more  thoroughly,  if  they  had 
lived.  We  are  always  logically  Catholics,  and  I  have 
always  been  Catholic  in  sentiment.  But  when  I  married 
— when  I  lived  in  America — I  drifted  away.  I  have  been 
in  these  last  years  correct  in  my  religious  observances, 
but  little  more.  And  now  that  I  find  myself  no  longer 
too  young  and  singularly  alone,  it  was  an  advantage  to 
my  situation  that — enfin,  that  I  should  cling  to  everything 
which  would  legalise  me  a  little.  It  was  an  advantage 
that  I  should  convey  to  Mr.  Irish  that  I  maintained  a  con- 
nection with  at  least  some  of  my  antecedents — that  I 
had  at  least  something  to  fall  back  on." 

Fresneuil  permitted  himself  a  light  amusement.  "Ah, 
madame,  que  vous  etes  fine!" 

"Something,"  she  said  smiling,  "which  should  make 
him  at  once  a  little  jealous  and  a  little  secure.  I  have 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     255 

frequently  remarked  that  it  annoys  a  man  to  have  a 
woman  totally  dependent  on  him.  There  should  be  a 
moral  reserve " 

"Parfaitement!"  Fresneuil  exclaimed.  "Mais  parfaite- 
ment!" 

"In  consequence  I  do  my  best ;  considering  my  situation, 
you  understand,  I  do  my  best.  Monsignor  Lock,  at  Poole, 
is  infinitely  kind  to  me  and  also  the  dear  nuns  there. 
And  kind  in  spite  of  their  strict  condemnation  of  my 
position.  For  that,  I  am  the  last  to  blame  them."  She 
turned  in  the  dim  light  beneath  the  trees.  "Then  to-day 
I  cannot  expect  Mr.  Irish?" 

"I  fear  that  for  to-day  it  is  impossible.  In  any  case, 
you  know,  he  was  engaged  to  go  to  Branksome  for  to- 
night." 

"Ah,  yes;  to  the  Frames,  the  cousins.  He  is  for- 
ever going  there,  is  he  not  ?" 

"Yes — it  is  true ;  he  is  forever  going  there.  I  too  have 
noticed  it." 

Fresneuil  answered  as  easily  as  she,  and  it  was  almost 
unconsciously  that  she  found  herself  arrested  by  some- 
thing in  his  tone.  She  paused  and  looked  at  him  in- 
tently. "You,  too,  you  say,  have  noticed  it?" 

"As  much  as  one  can  ever  be  sure  of  noticing  any- 
thing, with  so  elusive  a  person  as  Mr.  Irish !"  He  smiled. 
"But  it  is  true;  lately  his  interests  at  Branksome  do 
seem  to  have  increased." 

"The  family  there — the  cousins — there  is  a  mother 
and  two  daughters,  I  think?" 

"Yes.  Mrs.  Frame  is  a  woman  of  distinction  and 
charm.  The  younger  daughter — ah,  you  have  frequently 


256     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

seen  her;  she  is  a  type  which  endlessly  repeats  itself. 
The  elder— 

"Dorothy,  her  name  is?" 

"Yes — that  is  she.  She  is  more  reserved ;  there  is 
more  in  her  to  intrigue  one.  One  cannot  always  tell, 
but  I  should  say  she  had  a  definite  will  and  definite  de- 
sires." He  not  only  deliberately  returned  the  directness 
of  her  look,  but  she  had  the  odd  sense  that  he  waited 
long  enough  to  be  sure  she  registered  it,  before  he  again 
moved  forward,  beside  her,  up  the  path.  "And  I, 
madame,  I  have  taken  a  liberty.  I  have  brought  you  some 
of  the  newest  books.  When  I  was  last  in  Paris  I  ven- 
tured to  give  myself  the  pleasure  of  remembering  your 
tastes —  His  light  talk  continued  as  they  moved 

through  the  withered  garden  to  the  house. 


XXVI 

THE  clear  light  of  the  next  morning,  after  dull 
days,  seemed  to  Anne-Marie  to  dissolve  the  dis- 
turbing world  of  uncertainties  in  which  she  had  been 
living  as  it  dissolved  the  autumnal  mists.  She  woke  with 
the  sense  that  the  sun,  which  pierced  her  window  curtains 
and  broke  the  spell  of  rain,  was  the  hard  light  of  fact 
and  action. 

Before  her  eyes  were  well  open  there  was  a  loud 
knock  at  her  door,  and  she  heard  her  maid's  voice  say- 
ing that  Mr.  Irish  had  just  arrived  by  motor,  to  break- 
fast. He  had  not  much  time,  and  he  begged  her  to 
hurry- — would  she  get  up  at  once  ?  There  was  not  usually 
this  perturbation  on  the  however  sudden  occasions  of  his 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     257 

coming,  and  as  she  hastily  began  to  dress  Anne-Marie 
fancied  that  her  prescience  had  been  correct  and  that 
some  stir  was  afoot.  Whatever  it  meant,  she  felt  that  a 
definite  turn  to  their  affairs  would  be  as  welcome  as  the 
sunshine;  and  that  the  day  would  bring  this  the  tones 
of  Irish's  voice,  which  now  drifted  in  to  her,  made 
doubly  sure.  He  was  evidently  on  the  upper  floor  and 
going  with  the  butler  into  the  morning  room,  where 
they  usually  breakfasted;  and  as  she  listened  she  has- 
tened the  final  touches  she  was  giving  her  hair.  She 
knew  men's  irritability,  and  this  was  not  irritability  but 
something  deeper.  "Madame  du  Chastel  isn't  dressed 
yet  ?  But  it's  all  hours — almost  nine  o'clock.  Well,  bring 
the  coffee,  then,  and  try  to  get  me  something  that  isn't 
muddy  water.  And  I  want  the  gardener  to  be  at  the 
east  lodge  at  ten — ten  precisely.  I  shan't  have  a  minute 
to  spare,  and  I  can  see  him  there  as  I  go  out.  Ten, 
remember — don't  get  it  wrong  as  you  did  last  time. 
Whenever  I  come  here  I  seem  to  find  things  inexcusably 
neglected.  I  can't  understand  it.  Why  more  work  isn't 
done,  when  the  men  appear  to  do  nothing  but  stand 
around  and  waste  time — come,  you  must  look  sharp  about 
my  coffee." 

She  was  thus  prepared  for  something  new  in  him 
when,  after  her  best  effort  at  haste,  she  opened  the 
door  of  the  morning  room  and  greeted  him.  Yet  some- 
thing in  his  attitude  caught  her  up  at  once  and  astonished 
her  beyond  her  expectation — not  his  ill  temper,  but  his 
modulation  of  gesture  and  voice  to  a  sudden  and  care- 
ful politeness. 

"Well,  my  dear,  I've  routed  you  out  of  bed " 

"But  not  at  all,  Arthur,  not  at  all.     If  only  I  had 


258     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

known,  if  only  I  had  been  prepared,  I  could  have  saved 
you  this  delay.  What  a  pleasure,  to  see  you!" 

"I  was  confoundedly  sorry  about  yesterday.  I  hope 
it  didn't  put  you  out  ?" 

"Mais  du  tout,  du  tout." 

"It  was  absolutely  impossible  for  me  to  come.  I 
simply  couldn't  rescue  the  day;  so  Fresneuil  said  he'd 
run  down  and  explain " 

"Ah,  yes." 

"Then  I  finished  up  in  town " 

"And  went  to  the  Frames  at  Branksome  for  the 
night?" 

"Yes,  dined  and  slept;  and  as  I  most  particularly 
wanted  to  see  you,  I  thought  the  best  way  was  to  motor 
over  for  breakfast  and  for  a  little  talk.  I  wish  I  had 
more  time;  but  they're  sending  a  horse  and  groom  after 
me,  as  far  as  Wareham,  and  I'll  pick  them  up  there  and 
ride  the  rest  of  the  way  back.  There're  to  be  some  peo- 
ple for  luncheon  and  I  must  be  on  hand — people  I  must 
see." 

"Ah,  yes,"  said  Anne-Marie  again.  She  was  watching 
him  for  a  sign  which  should  place  the  reason  for  his  odd 
manner.  The  servants  closed  the  door  and  left  them, 
and  now,  as  he  stood  between  her  and  the  sunlight,  at  the 
other  side  of  the  laden  breakfast  table,  her  sense  of 
something  afoot  deepened  to  a  sharp  anxiety.  He  was 
in  riding  clothes,  which  he  always  wore  with  the  sug- 
gestion of  discomfort  of  a  man  not  temperamentally 
fitted  to  the  saddle.  At  the  moment  they  accentuated  his 
awkwardness  and  whatever  was  his  secret  embarrass- 
ment. Her  wit  played  upon  it.  The  early  morning  did 
not  suit  him.  Perhaps  his  unconscious  conventionality 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     259 

could  not  couple  the  ambiguities  of  their  situation  with 
this  cheerful  hour  of  talk  and  friendliness.  He  had  al- 
ways seemed  to  her  most  himself  in  the  evening,  in  the 
special  richness  of  the  Stratton  street  house,  sitting  in 
the  warm  shadows  of  the  library,  with  his  eyes  raised  to 
one  of  his  favorite  pictures  and  his  hand,  with  a  trick 
of  unoccupied  men,  vaguely  fingering  his  moustache. 
What  he  had  on  his  mind  now  absorbed  him  to  the  point 
of  spoiling  his  usual  flavour  and  the  faint  charm  of  his 
egotism.  His  scrupulous  politeness — she  had  long  since 
resigned  herself  to  the  unconscious  rudenesses  to  which 
her  position  exposed  her — struck  her  as  more  inexplicable 
than  anything  else;  and  she  found  herself  suddenly  re- 
gretting that  she  had  not  put  on  her  simplest  house 
dress  rather  than  the  bright  morning  gown  she  wore. 

"Bon!"  she  said,  with  a  gesture  of  decision.  "We 
must  eat.  But  sit  down,  my  dear,  I  beg  you.  Coffee — 
you  want  coffee?  But  you  have  had  coffee!" 

"I  was  so  hungry  and  you  were  so  slow " 

"My  poor  angel!  But  I  dressed  in  an  instant — an 
incredible  instant!" 

"You  mustn't  let  me  stop  your  breakfast,  you  know." 

"No,  no;  I  cannot  eat  now.  Let  us  talk,  and  I  can 
breakfast  later." 

"It's  true,"  he  said,  glancing  at  his  watch,  "that  I've 
only  such  a  short  time " 

"Good.  We  disregard  breakfast,  then ;  and  now,"  she 
put  it  with  a  smile,  "what  is  it  that  you  have  to  say 
to  me?" 

For  the  first  time  she  perceived  that  he  looked  at  her. 
She  had  seated  herself  on  the  arm  of  a  low  chair,  and 
she  was  facing  him  with  one  of  those  mixed  looks 


260     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

which  she  knew  so  well  how  to  compound  of  tenderness 
and  amusement.  She  seemed  to  assure  him  that  she  was 
wise  enough  to  disregard  all  annoyances  and  cross-pur- 
poses— that  she  knew  him  through  and  through,  from  his 
smallest  foibles  to  those  deep  matters  which  she  would 
never  force  him  to  explain.  Bending  a  little  towards  him, 
she  let  her  eyes  and  her  attitude  imply  so  thorough  a 
knowledge  of  all  his  moods  and  necessities  that  he  had 
only  to  trust  everything  to  her. 

She  saw  him  register  all  this,  and  then  she  was  aware 
that  his  look  passed  to  her  arms  and  her  bare  throat. 
"My  dear,"  he  said  abruptly,  "your  peignoir  is  too  much 
open  at  the  neck!" 

"Tiens,"  said  Anne-Marie,  "it  is!  You  are  right. 
Come,  then ;  what  is  it  you  have  to  say  to  me  ?" 

He  studied  her  for  a  moment  more.  "Well,  I've  just 
this  to  say.  I've  come  here  to  ask  you  once  more  to 
marry  me." 

The  colour  died  in  her  face.  Irish  saw  that  even  her 
lips  whitened  and  that  the  look  of  clear  fixity  which 
marked  her  furthest  verge  of  surprise  came  into  her 
eyes.  "But  I  do  not  quite  understand — will  you  say  it 
again  ?" 

Irish  lost  his  colour  too,  but  he  shrugged  his  shoulders 
with  an  effort  at  indifference. 

"What's  so  remarkable?  I've  asked  you,  heaven 
knows,  before  this." 

To  give  herself  time  she  rose  and  stood  by  the  mantel, 
with  one  foot  on  the  fender,  and  took  up  a  little  bit  of 
Lalique  glass  he  had  recently  brought  her.  "When  was 
the  last  time  you  asked  me?"  she  said,  after  a  moment's 
silence. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    261 

"When?     Last  spring — last  winter,  I  suppose." 

"Last  winter,"  she  corrected  him,  and  then  she  raised 
her  eyes  from  the  vase  she  held.  "The  night  you  gave 
me  my  emerald." 

"Of  course,"  said  Irish,  "it  was  then.  I  remember 
now."  If  he  had  his  concealments  to  make  and  she  hers, 
he  had  to  admit  that  her  courage  was  flawless.  Still 
white  and  with  her  hands  still  endeavouring  to  con- 
ceal some  inner  agitation — it  was  he  who  had  once  said, 
he  recollected,  that  her  hands  were  the  most  palpable 
expression  of  her  feelings — she  could  yet  retain  not  only 
the  calmness  which  meant  accurate  judgment  but  she 
could  give  both  herself  and  him  the  help  of  the  bridge 
which  her  florid  courtesy  built  across  difficult  moments. 
"It  is  good  of  you  to  do  this.  It  is  charming  of  you, 
and  I  greatly  value  it." 

"Not  at  all,  my  dear;  it's  I  who  have  so  much  to 
value  in  you." 

"Mais  non,  mais  non." 

"I  feel,  you  know,  that  you've  so  tremendously  suc- 
ceeded in  all  this — this  business." 

"No.  On  the  contrary,  the  success  has  been  yours. 
You  were  the  one  who,  by  your  education,  your  customs, 
everything,  was  most  open  to  mistakes,  and  you  have 
avoided  mistakes.  I  repeat,  Arthur,  that  you  have  been 
charming."  She  watched  his  protesting  shrug  and  the 
nervousness  of  the  gesture  with  which  he  drew  out  a 
cigarette  and  lit  it.  "Tell  me :  you  have  felt  our  present 
situation  could  not  go  on?" 

Her  attention  was  so  intently  set  on  him  that  she 
caught  the  faint  contraction  of  his  brows  before  he  said : 
"Yes,  I've  felt  that." 


262     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"That  it  was  just,  let  us  say,  neither  to  your  happi- 
ness nor  to  mine?" 

"Yes,  exactly." 

"In  the  past  year — since  we  left  America — you  have 
been  happy?" 

It  was  odd  that  now  he  should  redden  a  little.  "Of 
course;  I've  been  everything  most  happy." 

"Everything  most  happy!"  she  repeated;  and  as  he 
bent  forward  to  throw  the  match  with  which  he  had  lit 
his  cigarette  into  the  grate,  he  noticed  that  she  drew 
sharply  away  from  him.  "So!  and  I  too.  I  have  been 
everything  most  happy." 

"You're  good  to  say  so.  But  I've  learned,"  he  shook 
his  head,  "and  it  can't  go  on.  It's  right  neither  to  your 
life  nor,  if  one  puts  it  so,  to  mine.  I  don't  know,  but 
I  take  it  a  man  needs  different  things " 

"You  mean  that  you  are  further  on  in  the  forties,"  she 
took  him  up,  "and  not  so  rash  as  you  were." 

Irish  met  her  quick  smile  with  his  slower  smile.  "Oh, 
will  any  one  ever  understand  me  as  well  as  you  do,  I 
wonder!"  He  appeared  for  a  second  to  relax,  and  then 
he  gave  a  quick  sigh.  "Well,  there  it  is.  I  ask  you 
again  to  marry  me." 

Anne-Marie  looked  around  the  room,  at  the  streaming 
light  of  the  rarely  brilliant  winter  day,  at  the  monstrous 
paradise  birds  on  the  chintz  curtains,  the  comfortable 
breakfast  equipment,  and  finally  at  the  foot  on  the  fender 
so  near  hers.  Could  she  ever  forget  the  smallest  part 
of  what  framed  the  hour,  she  wondered,  down  to  the 
smell  of  Irish's  cigarette?  In  the  face  of  all  the  secret 
information  she  was  extracting  from  the  talk  and  in  view 
of  the  stakes  it  held  for  her,  it  was  instinctive  with  her 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    263 

to  feel  that  the  best  way  to  keep  hold  of  herself  was 
to  remain  perceptive.  There  was  a  brightness  in  her 
eyes  which  might  have  come  from  sharply  repressed 
tears.  Yet  the  motion  with  which,  after  the  lengthened 
pause,  she  replaced  the  little  ornament  upon  the  mantel 
was  one  of  the  clearest  decision. 

"You  go  now,  then  ?" 

"I  ought  to.  It's  a  long  ride,  as  I  shall  take  it,  and  they 
lunch  at  one." 

"Let  me  be  quite  clear ;  you  go  back  to  the  Frames,  at 
Branksome  ?" 

"Yes." 

"And  pass  to-night  there?" 

"Yes." 

"And  will  not  reach  there  much  before  one,  for 
luncheon  ?" 

"Exactly." 

"Bon.  You  will  have  word  from  me  there,  within 
the  next  few  hours." 

"At  Branksome?" 

"Yes." 

"You  want,  I  fancy,"  said  Irish,  and  he  again  red- 
dened a  little,  "to  think  it  over?" 

"Of  course ;  to  think  it  over."  Her  look  was  as  light 
as  the  tone  in  which  she  took  up  his  question.  "What 
would  you  have,  my  dear  boy?  I  am  thirty  and  these 
things  count.  Give  me  time." 

He  began  to  draw  on  his  gloves.  "You  didn't  want 
time  before." 

"Before?    Ah,  before  I  was  so  sure!" 

"Aren't  you  sure  now?" 


264     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

The  sparkle  in  her  eyes  grew  more  brilliant  as  she 
shook  her  head.  "No ;  not  now." 

"Incalculable  creature !"  said  Irish,  laughing,  and  again 
his  laugh  was  followed  by  a  quick  sigh.  "Well " 

"Arthur !"  she  said  impulsively,  laying  her  hand  on  his 
arm.  "Do  not  forget  it:  I  thank  you." 

"Thank  me?    For  wanting  to  marry  you?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  with  the  slightest  break  in  her  voice. 
"Yes." 

"Oh,  come,  my  dear,"  he  said,  brushing  her  brow 
with  his  lips,  "don't  be  hysterical.  I'm  sorry  I  scared 
you  up  so  confoundedly  early.  Where's  my  crop?  And 
that  ass  of  a  gardener — Knowles !  Knowles,  I  say ! 
Did  you  give  the  orders  I  told  you  to  give?" 

The  bustle  of  his  departure  rose — it  was  significant, 
she  had  thought  lately,  that  the  irregularity  of  their  re- 
lationship had  lasted  to  the  verge  of  regularity  that  now 
he  always  came  and  went  with  bustle.  The  butler  ap- 
peared, hurried  and  anxious,  a  footman,  the  Morte  chauf- 
feur. Irish  gave  his  instructions  and  made  his  com- 
plaints, as  he  descended  the  stairs.  In  the  lower  hall 
he  turned  and  looked  up  to  where  Anne-Marie  leaned 
upon  the  banisters.  "Good-bye,  then.  Forgive  me  for 
troubling  you." 

"Good-bye." 

"During  to-day  I   shall   hear?" 

"During  to-day."  In  the  gay  blue  and  gold  of  her 
peignoir  she  looked  like  some  tropical  bird,  lit  for  a 
moment  on  the  sombre  staircase.  She  waved  her  hand 
gaily.  "During  to-day,  I  promise." 

"Go  back  to  bed,  my  dear,  and  get  some  sleep."  He 
waved  back  at  her  and  passed  out  of  sight.  The  ser- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    265 

vants  followed  him,  and  through  the  open  door  she 
heard  the  noise  of  the  motor.  Her  body  stiffened,  as 
if  it  braced  to  meet  a  moment  of  pain,  and  she  heard  his 
voice  again,  calling  sharply. 

"Anne-Marie,  Anne-Marie  1" 

"Yes?" 

"Will  you  see  Foster  and  tell  him  that  there's  a  leak 
in  the  garage  roof  ?" 

"Yes— what?" 

"In  the  garage  roof;  there  must  be  a  leak.  The  top 
of  your  landaulet  is  being  rotted  through  by  dripping 
water." 

"Ah,   is  it!" 

"He  must  see  to  it,  and  at  once.  What's  an  agent 
for?  I  hate  to  bother  you  with  it — do  forgive  me — 
but  I  haven't  the  time.  Good-bye." 

"Good-bye,"  she  called;  the  door  closed,  she  could 
hear  the  motor  start,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  silence 
suddenly  redescended  upon  Morte. 


XXVII 

ANNE-MARIE  had  her  first  uncertainty  when,  on 
the  afternoon  of  the  same  day,  she  found  herself 
standing  in  one  of  the  closed  rooms  of  Irish's  London 
house. 

Throughout  the  hastened  action  of  the  day  she  had 
had  the  clearest  vision  and  the  most  complete  lack  of 
any  obscurity  in  her  purpose.  Even  when  she  had  gone 
back  and  shut  herself  in  the  breakfast  room,  with  the 
pleasant  warmth  of  the  sun  illuminating  its  gay  comfort 


266    MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

and  Irish's  cigarette  still  smoking  in  the  grate,  she  had 
not  hesitated  as  to  what  her  plan  must  be  or  distrusted  her 
capacity  to  carry  it  out.  She  could  close  her  eyes  and 
see  the  picture  she  must  have  presented  in  the  brilliant 
silks  of  her  gown,  against  the  background  of  the  chintzes 
whose  figures  were  like  fantastic  embodiments  of  her 
hurrying  thoughts.  It  had  seemed  to  her  then  that  the 
danger  she  confronted  lay  before  her  like  an  actual 
declivity.  It  was  so  much  the  more  acute  in  that  what 
she  risked  was  the  possibility  of  her  own  failure  to 
meet  the  situation  rather  than  of  Irish's.  She  was  keenly 
conscious  of  the  exactions  of  her  breeding  and  of  the 
necessity  to  maintain  intact,  at  any  cost,  the  high  tone  of 
the  life  they  had  led  together.  Since  she  had  been 
frankly  aware  of  the  instability  of  such  a  position  as 
she  occupied,  it  was  only  proper  that  she  should  accept 
the  consequences,  since  they  had  turned  against  her. 
This  was  her  nearest  approach  to  any  consciousness  of 
the  moral  demands  of  the  situation.  The  various  con- 
tacts of  her  experience  had  at  least  taught  her,  she 
thought,  that  there  was  a  high  attitude  of  which  one  did 
not  permit  one's  self  to  let  go. 

Phrases  of  the  letter  she  had  written  to  Irish  had 
kept  repeating  themselves  to  her  all  day.  She  wondered, 
indeed,  if  she  could  ever  reach  any  insensibility  which 
would  allow  her  to  forget  them  and  whether  they  must 
not  always  remain  as  intimately  in  her  memory  as  the 
close  scent  of  the  Stratton  street  rooms.  "I  must 
go.  ... "  That  appeared  to  be  the  refrain  of  what  she 
had  said,  as  if  that  alone  mattered ;  then,  "Why  should 
one  complain  of  destiny?"  "In  those  beautiful  days 
which  I  shall  cherish  as  long  as  I  live."  "I  have  under- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    267 

stood  the  truth.  You  love  some  one  else,  you  want  to 
marry,  to  establish  yourself;  you  want  to  be  free;  you 
have  the  right  to  be  free.  And  as  long  as  I  am  here 
you  are  not  free.  So  I  must  go."  It  was  at  this  point 
that  she  had  held  her  pen  for  a  moment.  She  knew 
the  evanescence  of  even  the  comfortable  sentiment  Irish 
would  drift  into,  and  that  in  marriage  as  in  his  rela- 
tion with  her  the  one  thing  of  which  he  was  supremely 
incapable  was  any  real  power  of  sustension.  It  was 
the  honest  deduction  of  her  experience  that  no  one  but 
she  could  continue  even  partially  to  make  him  happy, 
and  that  if  she  needed  him  it  was  no  less  true  that  he 
needed  her.  But  she  had  ended  by  shaking  her  head 
at  her  own  sophistry.  She  knew  she  was  not  a  person 
to  better  her  own  situation  by  his  ill- judgment,  and  she 
had  steadily  continued :  "To-day  you  made  the  most 
beautiful  geste  of  your  life.  Nothing  could  have  been 
more  beautiful  than  your  desire  to  do  your  best  for 
me.  But  there  was  a  difference  between  the  offer  you 
made  me  to-day,  and  the  offers  you  made  me  before; 
that  difference  is  the  months  we  have  passed  together.  .  .  . 
I  do  not  want  to  wait  for  our  love  to  die.  ...  I  must 
go,  and  I  must  go  while  I  suffer  and  while  you  suffer — 
for  I  know  that  you  will  suffer.  But  you  will  under- 
stand, as  I  do,  that  it  was  the  penalty  of  our  love  that 
it  had  to  be  brief." 

It  had  been  as  she  signed  the  sheet  and  sealed  it  that 
her  thoughts  had  taken  a  sudden  irrelevant  turn  and 
that  she  had  found  herself  back  again  at  the  night  when 
she  had  told  her  husband  that  she  meant  to  leave  him. 
The  scene  rose  before  her  with  the  vividness  of  a  vision. 
She  could  see  the  circles  of  light  which  the  lamps  on 


268     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

Cushing's  desk  made  in  the  brown  shadows  of  the  li- 
brary, the  suspense  which  had  seemed  almost  visibly  to 
hang  in  the  air,  the  way  Cushing's  hands  had  clasped  the 
back  of  the  chair  on  which  he  leant  as  he  confronted 
her.  Beyond  the  fact  of  the  immediacy  of  her  loss — 
beyond  the  actual  suffering  which,  as  her  mind  became 
clearer,  grew  more  and  more  penetrative — it  seemed  to 
her  that  she  could  foresee  that  her  marriage  and  her 
relation  with  Irish  would  one  day  assume  for  her  the 
impersonal  resemblance  of  all  great  experiences.  Grant- 
ing the  proportionate  concentration  of  feeling,  they  had 
lasted  an  equal  time  and  given  her  a  more  or  less  equal 
return.  But  what  made  their  real  identity  was  the  fact 
that  Gushing  and  Irish,  in  their  diverse  ways,  had  tried 
to  do  their  best  for  her.  The  instinct  to  make  amends 
to  a  woman  was  radical  in  them  both.  She  could  even 
trace  a  likeness  between  them — it  drew  from  her  a  faint 
smile — in  the  fact  that  they  would  both  vaguely  have  re- 
sented her  capacity  to  compare  such  intimate  personal 
adjustments  impersonally.  So  far  as  her  own  adjust- 
ments went,  she  troubled  no  more  about  her  inner 
processes  than  she  had  troubled  when  she  left  her  hus- 
band. Several  times,  during  the  last  hours,  she  had  re- 
peated to  herself  the  kind  of  phrase  she  had  so  often 
heard  Gushing  use :  "If  things  don't  last — why,  it  makes 
all  the  poetry  of  living  that  they  don't  last."  Her  de- 
pendence on  him  had  been  instinctive  enough  to  make  her 
recall  his  view  at  such  a  time.  It  meant  to  her  little 
more  than  a  vague  formula,  and  her  attention  had  wan- 
dered from  it  to  her  vagrant  curiosity  as  to  who  would 
next  wear  Irish's  pearls.  Yet  her  sense  of  drama  helped 
her  where  her  sense  of  the  imaginative  failed,  and  the 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     269 

weight  of  her  impending  loneliness,  pressing  momentarily 
closer,  was  held  a  little  at  bay  by  the  vast  riddle  of  the 
inequities  of  life. 

She  did  not  know  how  the  rest  of  the  morning  had 
passed,  but  she  was  somehow  aware  that  she  had  man- 
aged its  difficulties  well.  There  was  fortunately  little 
time — she  meant  to  catch  the  one  o'clock  express — and 
she  had  to  make  her  arrangements  so  hurriedly  that  the 
household  had  no  leisure  to  indulge  its  astonishment. 
Her  only  explanation  of  her  sudden  departure,  without 
a  maid  and  with  so  little  luggage,  was  the  bare  state- 
ment that  she  had  been  called  away,  that  she  would  be 
gone  indefinitely,  and  that  everything  was  to  be  guarded 
in  Mr.  Irish's  interest.  He  would  probably  be  there  him- 
self in  a  day  or  two — there  was  a  letter  which  would 
explain  her  plans  to  him  and  which  the  motor,  after  leav- 
ing her  at  her  train,  was  to  take  over  to  Branksome. 

Her  purpose  was  not  so  much  to  silence  comment  as 
to  declare  her  plans  so  definitely  that  she  was  committed, 
beyond  any  weakness  of  her  will,  not  to  return.  She 
recollected  that  it  was  one  of  the  penalties  of  her  position 
that  she  should  have  to  relinquish  it  with  a  lack  of  frank- 
ness, and  this  was  not  the  way  in  which  she  would 
have  chosen  to  part  from  Morte.  Her  last  quick  look  at 
the  house,  as  it  faced  the  noon  sunshine  with  all  its 
old  impenetrability  and  before  the  bare  trees  enclosed 
it  from  her  view,  had  tried  to  convey  something  of  her 
regret.  If  in  human  relations  there  were  a  special  set 
of  senses  which  instructed  when  a  situation  should  be- 
gin, it  seemed  to  her  that  the  finer  apprehension  recog- 
nised the  note  of  ending,  the  turning  current  and  the 
fading  light,  and  that  she  would  always  owe  Morte  a 


270     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

debt  for  not  lowering  in  her  a  sense  of  fitness  as  scrupu- 
lous as  its  own. 

When  she  reached  London  she  had  driven  at  once 
to  Stratton  street.  The  house  was  in  the  hands  of  care- 
takers, since  Irish  had  been  there  rarely  of  late,  and  as 
she  ran  no  risk  of  meeting  him  she  had  yielded  to  her 
imperative  desire  to  see  it  again.  She  had  set  herself 
to  make  the  pilgrimage  from  room  to  room,  in  the  wan 
light  which  penetrated  the  shuttered  windows;  and  it 
was  now  that  her  pain  overcame  her  with  the  reality  of 
the  physical.  In  the  midst  of  what  so  intimately  evoked 
their  happiness  she  felt  how  rare  and  brilliant  it  had 
been,  how  full  of  fortunate  accidents  and  lovely  moments. 
Her  clear  eyes,  passing  around  the  silenced  rooms  and 
the  shrouded  furniture,  recognised  the  closest  touch  of 
her  grief:  what  she  had  to  uproot  was  not  only  a  feel- 
ing but  a  habit.  She  had  trained  and  shaped  her  very 
thoughts  to  responses  which  would  no  longer  be  required 
of  them.  The  loss  of  Irish's  demands  on  her  seemed  to 
her  to  penetrate  her  more  profoundly  than  the  loss  of 
her  demands  on  him.  The  dimmed  reflections  of  the 
polished  floors,  the  dry,  close  air  of  Irish's  library, 
where  she  had  been  accustomed  to  see  so  much  warmth 
and  light,  the  stillness  in  her  own  rooms — a  stillness 
which  was  not  enriched  and  suggestive,  as  it  had  been, 
but  which  verged  on  vacuity — reminded  her  of  the  final- 
ity of  her  act.  It  struck  her  as  indescribably  strange  that, 
with  the  slightest  quiver  of  her  resolution,  she  could 
infuse  it  all  with  life  and  make  it  bloom  again.  If  she 
telegraphed  Irish  two  words,  or  if  she  merely  turned  and 
crossed  the  hall  to  where  the  telephone  stood,  she  could 
transform  the  silence  of  the  house  into  activity. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    271 

The  sense  of  her  power  was  what  gave  the  subtlest 
forms  to  her  nascent  jealousy.  She  was  too  honest  not 
to  admit  the  temporary  nature  of  the  influence  she  still 
retained.  If  she  sent  Irish  a  message  to  come  instantly 
and  to  receive  from  her  personally  the  news  that  she  had 
capitulated  and  changed  her  mind,  he  would  of  course 
come.  But  she  knew  at  the  cost  of  how  much  strain  to  a 
bond  which  had  not  been  made  to  bear  strain.  It  was 
Miss  Frame  who  would  now  have,  as  she  plainly  saw,  the 
privilege  as  well  as  the  penalty  of  creating  a  relation 
which  could  withstand  tests,  and  who  would  have  all  the 
presuppositions  of  orthodoxy  to  help  her.  As  she  fingered 
the  little  objects  which  had  been  left  on  her  writing  table 
and,  in  her  passage  from  one  room  to  another,  stirred  the 
hangings  whose  old  blue  folds  seemed  to  have  retained 
some  faint  aroma  of  all  that  had  made -her  life  here  so 
happy,  she  wondered  if  it  were  not  the  malignity  of  fate 
that  a  result  which  had  cost  her  such  care  and  such 
control  should  be  achieved  by  another  woman  with  ease, 
simply  because  she  would  be  Irish's  wife.  She  had 
never  been  jealous  of  his  former  feeling  for  Geraldine 
Herring.  Her  own  adroitness  could  easily  discount  the 
surviving  traces  of  such  an  influence.  But  the  throng 
of  uncertainties  and  premonitions  which  now  beset  her 
touched  her  intimately.  She  felt  now  not  so  much  that 
the  woman  Irish  married  would  fail — that  she  would  be 
unable  to  keep  up  forms  of  response  which  could  meet 
such  elusive  demands  as  his — but  that,  with  his  settling 
into  middle-age,  she  could  not  well  avoid  success. 

She  found  herself  wishing  for  some  of  the  obtuseness 
of  such  sentimentality  as  Mrs.  Sale's.  It  would  have 
been  a  consolation  to  believe  either  that  she  was  injured 


272     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

or  that  she  had  the  factitious  comforts  of  a  voluntary 
renouncement.  Edith  could  always  have  found  a  motive 
for  the  disaster — she  smiled  ironically  at  the  idea.  She 
herself  had  to  admit  that  the  sequence  of  such  events 
was  the  result  of  the  gradual  development  and  rearrange- 
ment of  passing  time.  The  growth  of  her  restlessness 
had  not  obscured  the  fact  that  her  feeling  for  Irish  was 
still  profound.  She  had  recognised  in  their  difficulties 
the  inevitable  friction  which  rose  in  such  cases ;  and  as 
she  debated  and  argued  with  herself,  moved  more  power- 
fully than  any  external  circumstances  could  have  moved 
her  by  the  recollections  around  her,  she  felt  all  the 
vitality  which  still  existed  in  their  relation.  It  would 
have  been  less  than  Irish  deserved,  she  had  told  herself, 
if  she  could  have  followed  her  purpose  of  leaving  him 
entirely  without  weakness. 

The  faint  reflection  of  the  street  lamps  through  the 
closed  blinds  showed  her,  when  she  finally  roused  her- 
self, that  it  was  already  late.  She  had  left  her  luggage 
at  the  station,  and  she  had  already  bought  her  ticket 
for  an  evening  train  to  Southampton  which  connected 
with  the  midnight  boat  to  Havre.  There  was  nothing 
for  her  to  do  in  the  interval  but  stop  at  some  hotel  and 
dine.  But  she  felt  that  she  could  no  longer  stay  in  the 
house  without  exciting  suspicion,  and  she  was  just  de- 
scending the  lower  stairs  when  a  sharp  ring  at  the 
street  bell  made  her  pause.  The  servant  in  charge  had 
evidently  been  standing  at  the  entrance,  to  let  her  out, 
for  before  she  could  draw  back  the  door  was  opened 
and  Fresneuil  confronted  her. 

He  signed  to  the  man  to  leave  them  and  then,  in  the 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    273 

light  which  shone  dimly  through  the  wide  hall,  he  looked 
up  to  where  she  stood. 

"I  can  be  of  no  service  to  you,  madame?"  The  for- 
mality of  the  words  was  oddly  at  variance  with  the  strain 
of  his  tone  and  with  his  repressed  animation. 

Anne-Marie  had  thrown  back  her  veil,  and  though  she 
was  aware  that  the  signs  of  her  tears  still  showed  she 
kept  her  look  clear  and  steady.  "Thank  you,  I  need 
nothing,"  she  answered  briefly. 

"I  have  just  reached  town,"  he  pursued,  "and  I  thought 
— I  felt  that  perhaps " 

He  caught  in  her  eyes  a  flash  of  fear  that  he  had  come 
from  Irish.  "No,  there  is  nothing  you  can  do  for  me — 
nothing.  I  have  decided  to  go  away — I  am  leaving  Eng- 
land to-night,"  she  explained  more  hurriedly. 

Fresneuil  continued  to  search  her  face.  "You're  go- 
ing! Ah,  I  thought  so!" 

She  descended  the  few  steps  which  separated  them, 
with  a  vague  feeling  that  she  must  get  out  of  the  house 
before  he  said  anything  more.  What  was  intolerable 
to  her  was  that  he  had  come  on  any  errand  which  inter- 
posed between  herself  and  her  decision,  and  that  Irish 
should  by  any  means  try  to  plead  with  her  or  to  interfere 
with  her. 

"I  do  not  know  what  Mr.  Irish  can  have  told  you " 

she  began,  and  then  she  paused  before  the  evident  sin- 
cerity of  his  surprise.  "But  I've  not  seen  Mr.  Irish  since 
early  this  morning." 

"This  morning?" 

"Last  night  I  found  he  had  wired  me  in  care  of  the 
station  master  at  Corfe.  They  gave  me  the  message 
while  I  was  waiting  for  my  train — after  I  had  dined  with 


274  MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

you.  He  wanted  me  to  be  at  Branksome  very  early  to- 
day, as  early  as  possible.  So  I  drove  over — it  was  then 
very  late — and  slept  at  the  village  inn  there  and  saw  him 
this  morning;  before" — his  look  deepened — "before  he 
saw  you." 

"Then  why ?"  she  asked. 

She  had  never  seen  his  calmness  more  nearly  desert 
him;  he  laid  his  hands  on  the  carved  railing  which  sep- 
arated them  and  bent  nearer  to  her.  "Ah,  madame,  you 
will  not  rebuke  me,  but  in  the  last  hours  I  have  so  deeply 
felt " 

"What  did  Mr.  Irish  tell  you?" 

"Nothing;  nothing  but  the  fact  that  he  hoped  that  it 
might  be  possible  you  would  consent — You  see,  there 
were  arrangements  to  be  made;  and,  if  you  permit  the 
term,  as  your  friend  and  his " 

She  raised  her  head.     "But  I  have  not  consented." 

Fresneuil  answered  instantly.  "I  knew  it;  I  knew 
you  would  not;  so  I  went  back  to  Morte  just  after 
luncheon,  and  when  I  found  you  gone,  then  I  under- 
stood. You  are  sure,  madame,  that  there  is  no  way 
in  which  I  can  serve  you?" 

Her  astonishment  arrested  her  for  an  instant.  "You 
knew  I  would  not  consent?  What  do  you  mean?" 

"I  knew  it,"  he  repeated  firmly.  "Ah,  don't  you  see 
that,  knowing  you,  it  was  impossible  not  to  know  it?" 

Anne-Marie  continued  to  hesitate,  with  her  eyes  fixed 
on  his.  "Then  you  came,  yesterday,  to  warn  me?  Was 
that  it?" 

He  coloured  faintly  and  she  saw  that  the  delicate  sen- 
sitiveness of  his  face  stiffened  slightly.  "You  did  not 
need  warning." 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     275 

"Ah,  did  I  not!"  She  clasped  her  hands  and  she 
felt  her  voice  tremble.  "Does  one  not  long  for  just 
a  moment  of  respite — just  a  second — before  the  stroke 
of  fate  falls?" 

"You  did  not  need  warning,"  Fresneuil  reiterated. 
"If  I  had  doubted  it,  it  was  you  yourself  who  showed 
me  the  answer.  No,  I  had  nothing  definite  in  mind; 
I  wanted  only  to  see  if  you  were  ready — do  you  under- 
stand?— to  see  if  your  sense  of  proportion  and  your 
fineness,  whatever  might  occur,  were  there  to  support 
you."  He  waited.  "And  you  are  sure  there  is  no  way 
in  which  I  can  be  of  use  to  you?  You  would  command 
me — you  will  always  command  me?"  He  gave  her  a 
last  eager  look  and  then  drew  aside  to  let  her  pass. 
"There  is  nothing  for  me  to  do,  then,  but  to  leave 
you." 

Anne-Marie's  head  had  bent  in  acquiescence.  She  fal- 
tered for  a  moment  more,  and  then,  with  an  impulsive 
motion,  she  held  out  her  hand.  "But  you  must  under- 
stand that  I  thank  you,  monsieur.  You  have  shown  me 
a  great  consideration." 


XXVIII 

IT  had  appeared  to  Gushing  to  be  the  only  legacy 
of  his  old  enthusiasms  that  he  should  continue  to 
mark  the  contrast  between  them  and  the  even  lines  into 
which  his  life  had  fallen.  In  his  moments  of  medita- 
tion he  found  that  his  thoughts  constantly  reverted  to 
the  opposition  between  the  present  and  the  things  which 
had  happened  a  year  and  a  half  ago.  The  gap  be- 


276     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

tween  his  hopes  and  their  fulfilment  had  been  so  wide 
that  his  irony  at  first  forced  him  to  classify  his  marriage 
as  one  of  the  brief  lapses  from  the  laws  of  convention- 
ality of  a  young  and  unformed  man.  He  had  noted,  with 
some  amusement,  that  his  immediate  reaction,  in  the 
first  months,  had  made  him  go  back  to  something  like  the 
localised  prejudice  against  everything  foreign  which 
must  have  existed  in  his  parents'  generation.  But  as 
time  and  distance  brought  it  all  into  better  proportion, 
his  justice  reminded  him  that  the  greatest  element  of  re- 
proach in  his  marriage  had  after  all  been  to  that  ill- 
judgment  which  had  led  him  to  attempt  it. 

What  had  at  first  seemed  to  him  insuperably  strange 
was  his  consciousness  that  so  far  as  Anne-Marie's  feel- 
ing went  their  divorce  had  scarcely  registered.  He 
could  close  his  eyes  and  hear  her  say  that  one  couldn't 
divorce  people  so  little  married,  that  their  marriage  had 
never  been  marriage  in  the  French  moral  and  social 
acceptance  of  the  term,  and  that  though  she  knew  that 
what  had  happened  was  an  outrage  of  good  tone,  it  was 
unfortunately  necessary.  Once  she  accepted  a  condi- 
tion, he  remembered  that  it  was  her  philosophy  to  abide 
by  it.  She  had  had  her  own  reasons  for  abandoning 
the  privileges  of  decency,  and  he  never  for  a  moment 
fancied  her  as  underrating  the  cost.  He  knew,  on  the 
contrary,  that  she  must  have  definitely  computed  and  ac- 
cepted it.  But  it  had  been  the  most  intimate  of  his 
difficulties  both  that  he  could  not  rid  himself  of  his 
curiosity  as  to  her  motives  for  such  an  action  and  that 
his  own  experience  with  her  so  plainly  proved  the 
answer.  She  would  have  sacrificed  what  she  considered 
so  important  only  in  order  to  contribute  to  the  success  of 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     277 

her  relation  with  Irish ;  and  this  was  a  constant  reminder 
of  what  the  extent  of  her  happiness  must  be. 

The  fact  that  he  had  none  to  compare  with  it  had 
more  than  ever  determined  Gushing  to  accept  the  full 
stigma  of  the  situation.  At  every  turn  his  pride  had  been 
more  subtly  wounded,  and  he  was  at  last  aware  of  a 
permanent  dulness  of  feeling  and  of  the  darkening  of 
his  face  to  the  expression  of  suppressed  pain.  His  vanity 
was  too  much  of  type  and  too  little  personal  to  react  and 
re-enforce  him  in  a  more  comforting  view  of  his  posi- 
tion. For  some  time  he  had  surrendered  himself  to  a 
suffering  which  it  seemed  to  him  that  his  loyalty  to  his 
deepest  feelings  forbade  him  to  ignore.  By  degrees  his 
impeccability  of  attitude  grew  less  strained  and  his 
opinions  less  sharp,  and  he  realised  that  his  natural  in- 
difference reasserted  itself.  If  he  had  not  Anne-Marie's 
frank  acceptance  of  what  had  happened,  he  was  none  the 
less  influenced  by  the  fact  that  their  marriage  had  been 
somewhat  out  of  the  usual  course  of  events  and  that 
its  failure  was  therefore  more  nearly  explicable.  In  the 
last  analysis,  he  thought,  they  had  always  had  these  sur- 
prising correspondences  of  conclusion.  What  she  reached 
by  quick  agility  of  reasoning,  he  reached  later  and  by 
the  profounder  method  of  travelling  distances  whose 
painful  length  was  beyond  illusion. 

Yet  he  had  the  persistent  sense,  accentuated  by  the 
rumours  he  heard  or  by  the  stray  notices  of  Irish's  move- 
ments in  the  newspapers,  that  Anne-Marie  was  man- 
aging both  her  difficulties  and  her  disgrace  well.  One 
might  have  known,  as  he  reflected,  that  she  could  be 
trusted  to  conduct  her  downfall  as  properly  as  possible. 
But  it  was  undeniably  creditable  that  the  only  scandal  in 


278     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

her  living  with  Irish  appeared  to  be  in  the  fact  that  she 
admitted  she  did  it.  He  had  known  women  who  had 
done  the  same  thing,  but  who  had  done  it  either  with 
vulgarity  or  with  a  belief  in  the  invalidity  of  usual  cus- 
toms which  made  the  step  hardly  more  than  theoretical. 
He  had  had  reports,  through  the  medium  of  his  sister, 
from  people  who  had  come  across  Irish  and  Anne- 
Marie  in  London,  people  who  had  passed  them  in  the 
crowd  after  a  play  or  who  had  seen  them  across  a 
restaurant.  Even  to  observation  which  could  not  see  her 
subtleties  as  he  saw  them,  she  had  appeared  perfect, 
neither  pushing  nor  unduly  evasive  but  with  her  dignity 
as  simple  as  if  she  had  never  lost  it.  It  was  above  all 
this  evident  directness  in  her  acceptance  which  held 
Cushing's  attention  and  which  so  often  occupied  his 
thoughts.  Part  of  the  very  elaboration  of  her  power  to 
affect  him  lay  in  the  fact  that  when  he  heard  of  the 
slightest  incident  concerning  her  his  imagination  could 
amplify  it  with  countless  meanings ;  though  all  the  while 
the  hard  tests  of  his  experience  reminded  him  of  the 
vacuity  of  her  inner  feeling. 

In  his  own  life  he  had  resumed  the  habits  and  tastes 
of  freedom.  He  was  closely  absorbed  in  his  profes- 
sion, and  he  had  already  the  nascent  sense  that  he  had 
created  for  himself  a  place  which  was  more  definite 
than  the  place  of  the  average  successful  man  and  that 
he  could  see  before  him  the  chances  of  a  wide  career. 
He  had  been  conscious  that  his  reversion  to  the  practical 
issues  had  not  only  been  because  of  instinctive  defence 
against  any  admission  of  his  own  difficulties.  Such  a  re- 
version was  in  itself  instinctive,  with  a  man  of  his  tradi- 
tions. The  private  feelings  of  the  men  with  whom  he 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     279 

was  constantly  in  contact  were  either  so  accepted  as  to 
be  a  foregone  conclusion,  or  so  submerged  that  he  some- 
times wondered,  in  contrast,  how  he  himself  had  been 
so  deeply  affected.  He  had  had  to  make  definite  and  pro- 
found readjustments,  of  nature  as  well  as  of  external  cir- 
cumstances. It  was  the  result  of  them  that  he  had  al- 
lowed his  professional  interests  to  take  possession  of 
him,  and  he  began  to  feel  already  the  satisfaction  of  the 
man  who  is  listened  to  with  a  certain  attention  and  who 
has  arrived  at  a  certain  definite  accomplishment. 

But  to  this  very  fact  of  the  intactness  of  his  own  life 
he  constantly  opposed  Anne-Marie's  present  situation. 
The  central  fact  of  what  she  had  done  made  any  com- 
ment futile.  Hie  knew  too  well  that  in  the  vast  sea  in 
which  she  had  sunk  one  could  not  look  for  wreckage. 
Yet  his  inner  knowledge  still  reminded  him  of  many  ways 
in  which  she  might  suffer.  It  was  part  of  the  paradox  of 
their  relation  that  their  break  had  been  complete  enough 
for  him  to  feel  himself  justified  in  thinking  of  her. 
Negative  as  they  seemed,  his  memories  never  let  him  for- 
get that  even  their  unhappiness  had  been  so  poignant  that 
it  was  still  constantly  present — that  she  had  shown  him  so 
wide  an  expanse  of  life  that  he  still  continued,  to  some 
extent,  to  live  by  it. 

He  had  not  yet  risen  from  his  dinner  when,  one 
evening  in  late  March,  his  sister's  name  was  announced. 
It  was  rare  for  her  to  come  to  him,  and  Gushing  at  once 
divined  something  unusual  in  her  manner  and  her  air  as 
she  took  her  seat  beside  him  and  pushed  away  the 
fruit  he  had  put  in  front  of  her.  When  the  servants 
had  gone  she  bent  across  the  table  towards  him.  "I've 


280     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

come  in  to  see  you  because  of  a  piece  of  news  I've 
just  heard.  They  say  it's  positively  announced  that 
Arthur  Irish  is  to  marry — to  marry  his  distant  cousin, 
Miss  Frame." 

"Well,  you're  surprised?"  he  heard  himself  ask. 

"Oh,  of  course,  there  have  been  warnings  that  some- 
thing was  afoot.  It  has  seemed  strange — all  one's  heard 
lately;  his  going  off  to  Venice  alone,  in  the  late  autumn, 
and  then  his  going  on  alone  to  Egypt.  But  this  is  posi- 
tive. I  suppose  it  means — I  can't  quite  see  what  it 
means." 

Gushing  smiled  as  he  continued  to  peel  his  fruit. 
"Nor  I." 

"At  least  it  means  a  break  between  him  and — well, 
his  present  life.  One  can't  conceive  how  Miss  Frame 
or  her  family,  with  all  the  scandal  there's  been,  will 
tolerate " 

"My  dear  Edith,  we're  neither  Miss  Frame  nor  Miss 
Frame's  people.  They'll  clear  up,  no  doubt,  so  cloudy  a 
situation." 

Mrs.  Sale  reddened.    "Yes ;  but  Anne-Marie " 

"I've  nothing  further  to  do  or  say  about  that." 

"But  remember  that  she  might  very  well  turn  up 
here  again.  What's  to  become  of  her?"  She  looked  at 
him  anxiously,  evidently  driven  by  her  desire  to  have 
him  declare  where  he  stood.  "Remember  that  she's 
still  so  young!" 

"Not  so  young  that  she  didn't  very  definitely  know 
her  own  mind  and  follow  it." 

"But  now  who  knows  what  may  happen?" 

"But,  my  dear,  I  do,"  said  Gushing.  "She'll  go  her 
own  way  and  make  her  own  life." 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    281 

"But  don't  we  owe  her  at  least  something?  Not  by 
her  computation,  of  course — that  takes  into  account 
merely  the  exigencies  of  justice,  and  let's  hope  we're 
decent  enough  to  be  something  better  than  merely  just. 
By  our  computation,  isn't  there  still  some  room  for 
generosity?  Ah,  it's  not  easy  for  me  to  grant  it,  but 
isn't  there?  She's  so  alone  and  she's  so  without  re- 
sources. I  know — you  told  me,  you  remember — that  no 
payment,  no  money,  passes  between  you.  Well, 
then " 

Gushing  shook  his  head.  "You've  worked  up  the 
kind  of  case  I  should  have  worked  up  myself,  a  year  or 
so  ago.  But  it's  not  necessary  to  work  up  anything. 
You'll  have  to  take  my  word  for  it.  You  were  kind- 
ness itself  when  it  was  right  to  be  kind.  But  it's  all 
long  since  closed.  I  can  only  repeat  it — I  know  what  will 
happen.  We  shan't  see  Anne-Marie  and  we  shan't  hear 
from  her."  His  smile  deepened  and  then  wavered. 
"She's  immoral,  if  you  please,  but  in  such  things  she's 
not  indelicate." 

His  sister  watched  him  for  a  moment.  The  puzzled  in- 
tensity behind  the  affectionate  concern  in  her  face  caught 
and  held  his  attention.  He  was  not  so  much  surprised 
at  Mrs.  Sale's  being  unable  to  dispel  the  shadow  of  his 
evident  recollections  or  at  her  sense  that  Anne-Marie 
should  have  left  behind  her,  after  such  a  disgrace,  such 
tenuous  threads  of  influence.  His  surprise  was  rather 
at  himself.  In  the  last  months  he  had  neither  made  a 
point  of  talking  of  his  wife  nor  of  pointedly  avoiding 
the  mention  of  her  name.  Yet  any  news  of  her  brought 
back  a  vivid  sense  of  her  implication  in  all  his  feelings. 
It  brought,  too,  the  recollection  of  her  astounding  in- 


282     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

genuity,  and  of  the  indecencies  in  her  careful  decency; 
and  he  found  his  thoughts  following  the  clue  of  what 
compact  of  deceit  she  might  still  make  with  Irish,  or 
perhaps  with  some  one  else. 

He  pushed  his  chair  away  from  the  table.  "Some- 
times I  feel  you  worry  about  me ;  my  dear  girl,  you 
mustn't  worry.  I've  told  you — I  need  a  holiday.  I  shall 
sail  in  a  week  or  so,  and  spend  a  month  in  Paris.  There 
are  some  matters  of  Miss  Morrow's  estate  which  must  be 
disentangled,  and  I  can  attend  to  them;  I've  put  them 
off  inexcusably.  Will  that  satisfy  you?" 

Mrs.  Sale  continued  to  look  at  him  searchingly.  "Ah, 
you  always  satisfy  me.  But  at  times  I  wonder — you'll 
forgive  my  saying  so? — just  what  Anne-Marie  left  be- 
hind her.  You  know,"  her  light  flush  showed  again, 
"she  left  something." 

"Know!  Of  course  I  know — who  should  know  bet- 
ter ?  Do  you  think  an  influence  like  hers  is  so  vague,"  he 
felt  the  sarcasm  in  the  question,  "that  one's  not  con- 
scious of  it?  But  that's  just  the  difficulty;  it's  there,  and 
yet  it's  so  fundamentally,  so  hopelessly,  vague." 

Mrs.  Sale  hesitated  again  and  then  bent  over  to  lay  a 
persuasive  hand  on  his  arm.  "Do  you  know  what  I'd 
do,  if  I  were  you?  I'd  marry.  Dear  Paul,  why  don't 
you?" 

Cushing's  smile  returned — less,  as  he  thought,  because 
of  the  idea  than  because  of  the  strange  sound  it  assumed 
when  it  was  put  into  words.  Yet  as  he  gave  his  sister 
back  her  glance  it  struck  him  how  perfect  her  for- 
bearance from  any  interference  or  coercion  had  all  along 
been,  and  he  laid  his  hand  affectionately  over  hers. 
"You've  been  so  good  not  to  mind  that  I  did  things 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    283 

in  my  own  set  way — never  to  bother  me  or  to  let  me 
see  that  you  were  bothered.  But  why  should  I  marry?" 

"And  why  shouldn't  you?  You've  every  right  to 
marry.  I  myself,  I  feel  that  it's  a  mistake  to  lose  one's 
chance.  If  I  were  younger — or  if  I'd  been  younger  when 
things  went  to  pieces  in  my  own  life — I  should  have  acted 
differently." 

"Should  you?"  The  connection  between  her  case,  so 
simple  and  obvious,  and  the  delicate  phases  of  his  own 
had  never  seemed  to  him  less  direct.  "Well,  yet  you 
can't  blame  me.  You've  made  your  life  active  and  in- 
teresting, and  I'm  trying  to  do  the  same  with  mine." 

"Active  and  interesting!  Yes!"  Mrs.  Sale  seemed 
to  pause  before  the  opposition  of  her  tenets  and  her 
personal  feelings.  "But  with  you  men  it's  different. 
They  say  that  if  a  woman  has  her  duty  and  a  dream 
she  has  enough." 

Gushing  was  looking  in  front  of  him  as  she  spoke,  at 
the  empty  chair  opposite  his.  For  a  second  his  sense 
of  how  his  wife  would  have  met  the  expression  of 
such  a  sentiment  was  so  vivid  that  he  could  almost 
hear  her  say:  "Do  you  think  so?"  and  see  the  amused  lift 
of  her  eyebrows  before  they  dropped  again  to  their 
careful  conventionality. 

He  rose  abruptly,  and  turning  towards  the  window 
behind  him  he  pushed  back  the  curtains  and  raised  his 
eyes  to  the  scattered  points  of  light  which,  above  the 
vast  shimmer  of  the  lights  of  the  city,  shone  dimly  in 
a  dark  and  windy  sky.  "Well,  it's  hopeless.  There's 
everything  to  prevent  my  marrying  again." 

"But  is  there  nothing  for  it?  Isn't  there,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  everything  for  it?  Isn't  there — let's  say  so 


284     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

frankly — Geraldine?  You  say  you'll  run  over  to  Paris 
for  the  spring;  see  her,  and  try!  You  know  as  well 
as  I  why  she  left  me,  at  the  time  of  your  divorce,  and 
why  she's  preferred  to  live  abroad.  She's  got  her  ways 

of  being  delicate,  as  well  as  Anne-Marie.  No "  she 

caught  the  meaning  of  his  uncertain  gesture.  "I  don't 
care  what  may  or  may  not  have  happened.  Surely  with 
the  confidence  and  companionship  which  so  plainly  exist 
between  you,  there's  no  reason  why  you  shouldn't 

marry "  She  broke  off  again,  and  then,  seeing  the 

gradual  astonishment  of  the  look  he  turned  to  her,  she 
added:  "But  is  there  a  reason?" 

Gushing  again  held  his  reply.  He  was  conscious  of 
his  sense  of  the  difficulty  of  answering  her — and  with 
her  all  the  former  points  of  view  in  himself  which  she 
represented — with  anything  approaching  the  truth  of 
what  he  felt.  He  was  scarcely  less  surprised  by  her  sug- 
gestion than  by  his  own  instinctive  revulsion. 

"No,  I  can't  say  there's  any  reason,"  he  finally  brought 
out.  "Any  reason  one  could  call  reasonable,  that  is." 

"Then  that  proves  my  point.  If  there's  nothing 
against  it,  there's  everything  for  it." 

"Everything — yes;"  he  still  kept  his  smile,  which 
seemed  less  a  play  of  his  features  than  an  expression  of 
his  thoughts.  "But  don't  you  see  that  everything  isn't 
what  one  wants?  One  wants  the  thing  that's  special — 
that's  inimitable." 

"It  hasn't  anything  to  do  with  Anne-Marie?" 

"My  dear  girl,  do  you  think  you're  quite  sensible?" 

Mrs.  Sale's  voice  warmed  in  her  earnestness.  "It  can't 
have  anything  to  do  with  Anne-Marie!  She  can't  have 
spoilt  things  for  you  so  successfully  as  that !  You  know 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    285 

that  I  myself  would  give  her  any  and  every  charity. 
No,  she  was  too  abominable!" 

"Come,  my  dear!"  Gushing  interposed.  "You're 
imagining  like  a  school-girl,  and  it's  not  like  you.  Of 
course  it's  not  got  anything  to  do  with  Anne-Marie. 
But  you  don't  seem  to  see  that  it  has  'got  to  do  with" — 
he  searched  for  a  term — "with  what  she  made  happen 
to  me.  That's  the  difference.  It's  got  to  do  with  the 
past." 

"Then  Anne-Marie,"  she  kept  to  her  point,  "isn't  what 
interferes  ?" 

"No,  of  course  not." 

"Yet  mustn't  one  just  believe  that  things  go  on — that 
life  goes  on  ?" 

"Yes;  it's  only  a  question,"  he  retorted,  "of  how  one 
advances  or  retards  them.  They  don't  always  go  on 
best  in  remarriage.  There  are  ways  of  spoiling  every- 
thing that  one's  done.  There  are  concessions,  there  are 
cheapnesses  of  repetition,  which  aren't  going  on  at  all — 
which  are  lamentably  going  back!" 

"Then  you've  felt  all  along  that  it  was  impossible  for 
you  to  marry  any  one?" 

"I  don't  know  that  I  have,  but  when  you  face  me 
with  it,  I  think  so." 

"Oh,  come,  Paul!     You're  not  logical!" 

"That's  it — of  course  I'm  not  Logic  isn't  what 
counts;  life  itself  isn't  logical.  It's  not  logical  for  me 
to  feel  I  can't  be  affected,  as  I  was  once  affected,  again. 
It's  not  logical  that  I  shouldn't  want  to  be  so  affected 
again."  He  faced  the  open  window,  with  a  suppressed 
impatience.  "It's  a  case  of  the  paralysis  of  life — of  the 
inhibitions  with  which  all  we've  thought  and  felt  sur- 


286     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

round  us.     That  impossible  feeling — that's  what  inter- 
feres, if  you'll  believe  me!" 


XXIX 

A  FORTNIGHT  later  Gushing  stood,  one  afternoon, 
and  looked  over  the  fall  of  the  S.  Cloud  terraces 
to  the  outstretched  view  of  Paris. 

It  had  been  a  mild  spring  day,  with  such  blue  and 
mauve  tints  running  through  the  misty  sunshine  that  the 
woods  behind  and  the  long  allees  opening  to  the 
sky  had  caught  and  kept  the  brume,  and  the  light  hung 
like  folds  of  gauze  between  the  trees.  In  the  faint 
golden  radiance  in  front  of  him  the  city  lay  impalpably, 
more  like  an  accretion  of  sun  and  mist  than  the  actual- 
ities of  stone.  He  had  often  climbed  to  the  topmost 
terrace  to  look  at  it,  across  the  shining  band  of  the  river 
and  the  tree  tops  whose  height  appeared  to  have  been 
so  beautifully  and  carefully  graduated  to  serve  as  a 
middle  distance.  But  this  afternoon  the  sight  seemed 
to  have  for  him  a  significance  which  stirred  amongst 
his  memories  like  a  faint  breath  of  air  stirring  amongst 
dry  leaves. 

Since  his  arrival,  a  few  days  before,  he  had  been 
gradually  and  increasingly  conscious  that  there  was  this 
strange  elision  between  the  city  and  his  thoughts.  At 
first,  indeed,  on  the  morning  when  the  boat  train  passed 
through  the  crowded  grimy  buildings  of  the  banlieue 
and  between  the  high  discoloured  walls  which  led  to  the 
S.  Lazare  station,  he  had  felt  an  instinctive  regret  at  his 
return  and  at  the  fact  that  the  propinquities  of  Paris  must 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     287 

bring  before  him  so  many  things  which  he  preferred  to 
forget.  It  had  not  been  until  his  ear  grew  accustomed 
once  more  to  the  French  sounds  and  his  visual  angle 
shifted  to  something  at  least  outwardly  like  their  visual 
angle  that  he  was  reminded  of  all  that  he  and  these  peo- 
ple had  in  common.  He  had  had  to  smile  to  himself  as 
he  made  the  admission  that  his  old  distrust  of  their 
speciousness  was  always  present.  Yet  the  colours  along 
the  meticulous  garden  walks,  the  cries  of  the  children  as 
they  played,  the  way  the  sun  slanted  down  the  streets, 
on  the  warm,  brilliant  afternoons,  the  high  note  at  the 
end  of  a  sentence,  instead  of  the  customary  Anglo- 
Saxon  drop,  woke  longer  and  longer  reverberations  in 
his  thoughts.  It  was  not  their  charm  alone  which  was 
involved.  He  had  learned  its  turns  and  twists  too  well 
to  think  it  more  than  a  delightful  finish.  What  had 
touched  him  most  nearly,  as  each  day  revived  its  sense 
more  intimately  for  him,  was  that  to  place  this  word 
and  that  gesture  should  be  a  reminder  not  only  of  his 
initiation  into  their  meaning  but  of  the  deepest  circum- 
stances of  his  own  life. 

The  evening  before  his  restlessness  had  overcome  him 
in  a  sudden  desire  to  be  alone.  He  had  had  an  en- 
gagement to  meet  some  of  his  compatriots  for  dinner 
and  to  go  on  to  the  play.  But  as  he  dressed  his  feel- 
ing was  so  vivid  that  he  decided  to  yield  to  it.  He 
despatched  a  messenger  with  an  apology  and  with  the 
plea  that  he  wasn't  in  the  mood  for  the  Frangais  and 
classicism,  and  after  he  had  dined  he  wandered  out,  with 
no  direction  to  his  thoughts,  through  the  tortuous  side 
streets  and  into  the  central  glare  of  the  boulevard.  Some 
distance  down  its  brilliant  length,  and  a  little  out  of  the 


288    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

press  of  his  own  country  people,  he  had  found  a  small 
cafe  and  seated  himself  at  a  table  under  the  extended 
awning.  There  was  something  of  the  real  Paris  here. 
The  company  around  him  and  the  waiters  who  pushed 
at  his  elbow  had  less  the  effects  of  wares  arranged  to 
tempt  the  foreigner's  enthusiasm;  and  as  he  sipped  his 
coffee  and  glanced  up,  through  the  blaze  of  light  over- 
head, to  the  sky  which  shone  dimly  between  the  inter- 
woven branches,  he  had  said  to  himself  that  for  the 
first  time  the  very  night  seemed  real  and  less  one  of 
those  stage  settings  for  which  the  city  was  so  remark- 
able. 

He  realised,  now  that  he  had  accomplished  it,  that 
this  escape  from  the  Paris  of  tourists  was  what  he  had 
wanted.  In  the  last  days,  while  he  had  walked  in  it, 
shopped  in  it  and  seen  its  pictures,  he  had  felt  the 
sharp  division  between  himself  and  the  transients  for 
whom  the  information  of  Paris  had  a  merely  intellectual 
value.  Something  in  the  restless  shifting  of  the  throng 
on  the  pavements  and  in  the  looks  and  gestures  in  which 
he  could  see  such  numerous  implications,  affected  him 
to  the  point  of  making  him  look  around  half  expectantly, 
with  an  odd  impression  of  his  wife's  actual  presence. 
He  had  often  had  the  illusion  before  and  he  had  always 
met  it  with  a  shrewd  distrust  of  his  own  fatuousness. 
But  he  asked  himself  now  if  it  were  not  the  cleverest 
of  all  her  ways  that,  across  any  time  and  any  circum- 
stances, she  never  permitted  one's  sense  of  her  presence 
to  lapse.  In  surroundings  like  these,  it  was  part  of  her 
penetrative  charm  that  she  could  contrive  to  remain  and 
to  hold  his  thoughts  as  closely  as  she  had  held  his  eyes, 
when  she  came  into  a  room,  set  on  the  lights  and  changes 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    289 

of  her  face.  It  was  the  same  trick  by  which  she  had 
made  even  her  name  seem  so  alive  with  her  particular 
quality.  Gushing  found  himself  repeating  it — Anne-Marie 
— Christiane — Clementine — de  Maupertuis  du  Chas- 
tel;  and  it  seemed  like  a  response  to  the  dim  evocation 
of  her  that  he  wondered,  more  intimately  and  presently 
than  he  had  allowed  himself  to  wonder  before,  what 
the  past  months  must  actually  have  meant  to  her. 

It  was  another  of  the  ironic  contrasts  between  them 
that  he  could  still,  even  across  her  intervening  experi- 
ences, feel  sure  of  a  knowledge  of  her  which  Irish,  with 
his  superficial  capacities,  could  never  have  acquired.  He 
could  even  admit  in  how  many  ways  she  must  have  taught 
Irish  to  love  her,  with  all  her  arts  to  help  her  and  with 
the  added  balance  of  that  stoical  acceptance  of  which  she 
was  at  times  capable.  But  he  could  also  see  the  deeper 
result.  Her  slower  motions,  an  accentuation  of  the  little 
line  of  hardness  at  the  corner  of  her  mouth  and  the  habit 
of  silences  into  which  she  must  have  fallen,  would  all 
show  the  constant  struggle  which  had  taken  place  be- 
tween her  emotion  and  her  reason.  But  she  was  the  kind 
of  person  who  left  one  wondering,  against  all  proof,  if 
she  really  could  have  changed;  and  Gushing  was  con- 
scious, beneath  his  intellectual  disbelief,  of  an  instinctive 
confidence  that  to-day  she  could  be  no  other  than  the 
Anne-Marie  who  had  her  same  little  vanities  and  coquet- 
ries and  her  strange  mixture  of  reason  and  unreason,  and 
who  would  have  kept  the  fresh  youth  he  had  loved 
through  all  the  inequities  of  her  fortunes. 

He  knew  what  the  very  illusion  of  her  which  he  had 
conjured  up  would  reply,  with  the  shrug  of  resignation 
which  he  could  see  so  vividly.  Of  course  she  had  changed. 


290     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

Life  could  not  be  lived  at  such  a  rate  without  bending 
and  subduing  what  had  been  such  a  proud  erectness  of 
character.  He  supposed  he  must  admit  that  there  could 
be  left  in  her  few  of  the  things  for  which  he  had  most 
tenderly  cared.  But  he  had  had  a  sense  of  secret  pleas- 
ure that,  even  in  this  dim  way,  she  had  risen  so  actually 
in  his  thoughts.  There  was  only  one  question  of  im- 
portance, his  memories  of  her  had  reminded  him :  what- 
ever had  happened,  they  had  still  the  bond  of  having  had 
together  the  best  kind  of  happiness  living  could  give.  He 
had  felt  his  romantic  sense  glow  with  life  at  the  touch ; 
not,  he  knew,  because  he  had  any  hope  for  a  different 
future,  but  because  of  his  recognition  that  he  had  lost 
with  her  all  that  made  the  poetry  of  living  and  that  what 
remained  was  not  a  question  of  possibilities  but  of  con- 
cessions. 

His  glance  had  dropped  from  the  distant  view  to  the 
nearer  perspective,  and  he  saw  that  a  pink  parasol  he 
had  been  half  conscious  of  watching  had  moved  away 
from  a  knot  of  equally  bright  hues,  gathered  against 
the  balustrade  of  the  widest  and  lowest  terrace,  and  that 
its  owner  was  slowly  beginning  to  mount  the  long  flights 
of  steps  which  led  to  where  he  stood. 

The  sight  gave  a  different  turn  to  Cushing's  reflec- 
tions. A  day  or  so  after  his  arrival  he  had  gone  to  see 
Mrs.  Herring,  to  deliver  the  various  messages  with  which 
his  sister  had  charged  him.  He  had  found  her  estab- 
lished in  a  large  premier,  in  a  quarter  whose  newness 
and  brightness  called  up  in  his  mind,  by  the  force  of 
contrast,  the  dim  old  gravity  of  the  rue  de  Bellechasse. 
When  he  stood  face  to  face  with  her  again,  the  sense 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     291 

of  a  slight  strain  which  he  had  expected  both  in  her  and 
in  himself  seemed  to  him  surprisingly  lacking.  Since  her 
departure  from  America,  the  year  before,  his  thoughts  of 
her  had  kept  the  tinge  of  feeling  of  their  talk  in  his  sis- 
ter's apartment.  His  impulses  of  sympathy  for  her  had 
been  at  that  time  too  deeply  stirred  for  him  to  take  ac- 
count of  anything  else.  But  it  was  perhaps  inevitable, 
he  supposed,  as  he  now  confronted  her  again,  in  her  er- 
ratic black  and  white  drawing  room,  that  the  lapse  of  time 
should  have  worked  insensibly  on  them  both.  Her  greet- 
ing to  him  had  the  savour  of  the  society  to  which  she  was 
now  accustomed — one  composed,  as  he  had  drily  observed, 
of  the  remnants  of  international  divorces.  As  he  listened 
to  her  sharp  talk,  he  had  even  had  the  sense  that  if  he 
looked  back  closely  enough  he  could  discover  unrealities 
in  the  confession  she  had  made  to  him.  She  had  ex- 
plained that  she  was  exceedingly  busy,  since  it  was  the 
beginning  of  a  gay  season.  Between  dinners  and  tea  par- 
ties, between  polo  and  the  races,  he  had  felt  not  only  that 
she  was  in  her  element,  but  that  he  definitely  preferred  it 
not  to  be  his.  But  that  morning  she  had  telephoned  him 
to  say,  in  a  quieter  tone,  that  she  unexpectedly  had  the 
afternoon  free  and  that  if  he,  too,  could  arrange  his  en- 
gagements they  might  go  off  to  S.  Cloud  for  a  talk  and 
for  tea. 

When  he  stopped  for  her  at  her  flat,  soon  after 
luncheon,  she  had  refused  his  suggestion  of  driving  out 
by  motor,  and  she  had  insisted,  instead,  that  they  should 
take  one  of  the  little  steamers  which  touched  here  and 
there  along  the  river.  As  he  sat  opposite  her,  in  the 
crowd  of  a  bright  afternoon,  and  listened  to  the  quick 
questions  and  comments  which  she  threw  across  at  him, 


292     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

in  spite  of  the  incessant  noise  and  the  blasts  of  the 
whistle,  Gushing  had  been  impressed  again  by  her  rest- 
lessness. His  recollections  of  her,  he  thought,  had  been 
surprisingly  just.  Her  exterior  had  not  deepened  and 
mellowed  into  subtler  shades.  It  was  only  a  little  more 
accentuated  than  he  remembered  it,  as  the  tint  of  her 
hair  was  a  little  yellower  and  her  cheeks  a  little  pinker. 
She  had  talked  ceaselessly,  giving  him  odd  bits  of  in- 
formation about  her  life  and  her  friends  and  laughing  at 
his  amusement  at  her  definitions ;  and  she  had  kept  to 
the  same  key  while  they  walked  up  the  long  hill  at  S. 
Cloud,  past  the  strident  music  in  the  cafes  and  past  the 
sunken  court  of  the  Caserne. 

He  had  been  rather  glad  that,  when  they  reached  the 
first  line  of  the  gardens,  she  should  have  fallen  in  with 
some  American  friends,  who  were  going  in  the  opposite 
direction,  and  that  while  she  paused  to  talk  to  them  he 
had  had  his  chance  to  go  on  and  so  to  have  his  first 
glimpse  of  the  wide  outlook  alone.  But  as  Mrs.  Herring 
came  up  the  last  steps  and  he  turned  to  meet  her,  he  was 
struck  by  the  fact  that,  in  spite  of  the  evident  anima- 
tion of  her  exchange  with  the  people  below,  one  of  the 
quick  fluctuations  of  mood  which  he  so  well  remembered 
had  meanwhile  come  over  her. 

Her  first  words,  as  she  paused  beside  him  at  the  edge 
of  the  balustrade,  and  though  they  were  spoken  in  her 
usual  bantering  tone,  had  also  a  deeper  note.  "Why  did 
you  hurry  on?  Were  you  afraid  of  the  scandal  of  being 
seen  with  me?" 

"Scarcely — since  so  far  as  I  go  it  would  be  so  much 
worse  a  scandal  plainly  and  openly  to  have  deserted 
you." 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    293 

"Yes — and  in  such  a  spot  as  this  things  have  such 
implications!  Ah,  well,  I  suppose  that  what  we  both 
really  mind  is  not  the  implication  but  the  lack  of  any 
reality  behind  it.  That  means  one's  older.  It  means  that 
people  know  I've  become  the  kind  of  woman  whose  ex- 
cesses are  only  conversational.  Four  or  five  years  ago, 
if  we'd  come  here  on  such  a  day  and  with  such  sunshine, 
whoever  we  met  would  have  perhaps  forgiven  me  for 
not  marrying  you ;  but  they  wouldn't  have  forgiven  you," 
she  smiled,  "for  not  marrying  me!  Do  you  realise  that?" 

"Perhaps  I  do,"  he  returned  her  amusement;  "but  it's 
only  when  you  admit  to  me  that  you,  too,  realise  it " 

"That  it  really  seems  terrible  and  true  ?"  She  drew  the 
long  gloves  she  had  taken  off  through  her  hands,  and  her 
eyes  fell  from  the  horizon  to  the  figures  which  came  and 
went  below  them.  "Yes,  it  has  its  suggestion  of  romance, 
this  place,  hasn't  it?  Even  tourists  like  these  become  a 
little  romantic;  it's  only  you  and  I  who  remain  set  and 
obvious." 

Her  voice  had  sunk  to  soberness,  and  after  another 
pause  she  abruptly  exclaimed :  "Your  chance  of  romance 
and  mine — it's  somewhat  paradoxical  that  they  should 
have  decamped  together !" 

Gushing  felt  the  blood  rise  in  his  face.  His  constant 
sense  of  a  consideration  due  her  could  not  lessen  his  in- 
stinctive defence  of  his  own  privacies.  But  as  he  turned 
towards  her,  conscious  of  the  change  in  his  expression, 
she  took  up  before  he  had  uttered  it  his  evident  declara- 
tion of  the  point  beyond  which  she  could  not  pass. 

"No,  I  know  your  wife's  none  of  my  affair.  And  yet, 
in  a  ridiculous  way,  she  is  because  Arthur  is.  All  that 
isn't  my  affair,  let's  say,  is  what  you  lost  with  her.  But 


294     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

what  does  concern  me  is  what  I  lost  with  him.  Ro- 
mance !  It  comes  down  to  the  concrete,  doesn't  it  ?  And 
in  the  last  year  or  so  I  don't  pretend  to  you  that  I 
haven't  thought  of  his  yacht  and  his  comforts — especially 
when  I  got  my  bills  and  realised  what  things  cost!" 

Gushing  felt  that  his  glance  softened.  "I  don't  believe 
it's  been  particularly  easy — has  it?" 

She  turned  and  met  him  with  a  grave  attention.  "Just 
what  do  you  mean?  Do  you  mean  that  it  hasn't  been 
particularly  easy  to  live  on  a  small  income,  with  my  tastes, 
when  I  should  very  much  have  preferred  Arthur  Irish's 
income?  Or  do  you  mean  that  none  of  it's  been  particu- 
larly easy — the  getting  up  each  morning  and  the  going 
to  bed  each  night?  Of  course  it's  been  easy;  anything 
is,  once  one's  sufficiently  drugged  by  habit!"  Her  eyes 
Wavered  and  he  saw  that  her  lips  quivered  lightly.  "Ah, 
what  a  lie  that  is!"  she  ended. 

Gushing  waited  for  an  instant.  By  a  trick  of  the  per- 
ceptions when  the  mind  is  intensely  occupied,  he  seemed 
unable  to  drive  his  thoughts  farther  than  the  twists  and 
curves  of  the  smoke  of  the  cigarette  he  held,  as  it  rose, 
thin  and  tortuous,  in  the  pale  still  air.  It  was  one  of 
those  moments  when  he  scarcely  knew  by  what  mental 
deductions  he  proceeded,  but  when  he  felt,  with  the  prog- 
ress of  each  second,  a  more  definite  determination.  He 
was  vaguely  conscious  that  the  determination  was  tem- 
porary— even  that  it  was  momentary.  Yet,  though  he 
could  not  clearly  discern  its  beginnings  and  though  he 
knew  that  it  was  rooted  in  outgrown  habits  and  long  since 
surfeited  desires,  its  force  had  the  force  of  all  intangible 
demands  and  loyalties. 

"I  didn't  come  over  to  ask  you — I've  not  been  clear  as 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     295 

to  whether  it  were  fair  for  me  to  ask  any  one ;"  he  spoke 
directly ;  "but  if  you  think  it  will  be  for  your  happiness, 
will  you  marry  me?" 

Geraldine's  eyes  rose  quickly  to  his.    "Marry  you  ?    I  ?" 

"I'm  not  such  a  fool  that  I  don't  realise  how  generous 
it  would  be  of  you  to  show  me  such  generosity.  But  if 

you  feel "  he  broke  off.  "I  only  want  you  to  know 

that  I'll  do  my  best " 

She  had  turned  her  back  to  the  balustrade  and  her  eyes 
again  rose  to  meet  his,  before  they  fell  to  the  point  of  her 
parasol,  with  which  she  was  drawing  some  slow  design 
on  the  gravel.  "Good  heavens,  no!"  she  replied  lightly. 
"I  shouldn't  think  of  it." 

"Because  you  feel  I'm  not  in  earnest,  because  you  feel 
I've  still  ties — at  least  of  some  invisible  sort?  Of  course 
I've  ties;  so  have  you.  But  that's  not  the  point.  I've 
been  profoundly  happy  and  profoundly  unhappy.  You 
know  that.  But  one  doesn't  necessarily  live  by  one's  life- 
less recollections " 

Mrs.  Herring  continued  for  a  second  to  trace  her  cryp- 
tic figure,  and  then  she  said,  without  meeting  his  eyes 
but  with  clear  distinctness :  "I  have." 

"You  mean "  he  caught  himself  up  and  flushed 

deeply. 

"I  mean  just  that.  I've  lived  on  recollections,  which 
were  thin  and  bodiless  enough,  poor  things !  And  when1 
one's  done  that" — for  the  first  time  her  colour,  too, 
changed — "no,  thanks,  one  prefers  them  to  certain  sorts 
of  actuality." 

"Oh,  I  know  I  must  put  it  coldly  and  inanely,"  he 
broke  out  "But  I  don't  feel  it  coldly.  If  you  knew  the 
countless  hours  through  which  I've  reproached  myself, 


296    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

the  countless  stupidities  I've  understood  I  must  have  com- 
mitted !" 

"I  do  know — since  I  know  you."  She  hesitated  and 
shook  her  head.  "No,  understanding  as  you've  been,  it's 
been  impossible  for  you  not  to  stumble  into  misunder- 
standings. As  if  one  could  avoid  it,  in  such  a  ridiculous 
situation! — knowing  that  a  woman  with  whom  one  had 
long  since  broken  had  continued,  without  rhyme  or  rea- 
son,— well,  to  feel  that  she  hadn't  broken.  If  you  as- 
sumed one  thing  you  were  fatuous,  and  if  you  assumed 
the  other  you  were  unkind ;  it  must  have  been  hopelessly 
difficult  and  hopelessly  absurd.  You  haven't  meant  it 
that  way,  I  know,  but  you're  absurd  to  ask  me  to  marry 
you." 

"You  think  I  couldn't  make  you  happy — or  myself, 
either?  You've  forgotten,  then, — you've  forgotten  days 
we've  had  together  which  were  everything  happy." 

"No.  I've  scarcely  forgotten."  She  smiled.  "And  I'm 
scarcely  so  stupid  that  I  don't  know  we  could  be  happy 
again.  There's  everything  for  you  to  do  for  me,  and 
there  are,  perhaps,  things  I  could  do  for  you." 

"Then  why " 

She  broke  his  question  in  two.  "Tell  me !  In  the  best 
times  of  your  feeling  for  your  wife — in  the  very  best 
times  of  it — didn't  you  have  something  which  you  couldn't 
relive  with  any  one  else  ?" 

Cushing's  eyes  turned  again  to  the  distance,  with  its 
hazy  golden  lights.  "One  never  relives  anything.  But 
there  are  different  things — things  not,  perhaps,  of  the 
same  quality,  but  with  all  the  quality  of  what  makes  them 
valuable " 

"And  yet  one  doesn't  relive — that  you  grant.     Well," 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    297 

she  gave  a  quick  sigh,  "that's  just  it.  I  can't  relive.  I 
can't  risk,  as  a  matter  of  concession — perhaps  as  a  mat- 
ter of  the  first  wisdom  of  middle-age! — the  sacrifice  of 
the  memory  of  what  we  once  did  spontaneously  and  with 
all  the  best  of  us.  Not  such  a  magnificent  best — espe- 
cially so  far  as  you  went — I  know  that;  but  it's  been 
enough.  If  I  married  you,  don't  you  see  I'd  lose  every- 
thing?" She  was  silent  for  some  moments,  and  then 
she  turned  and  laid  her  hand  briefly  on  his  arm.  "It  was 
nice  of  you,  though."  An  instant  later  she  added :  "Do 
you  know  I've  often  wondered  whether  the  relation  be- 
tween your  wife  and  Arthur  has  been  anything  like  what 
once  existed  between  you  and  me !" 

Gushing  was  conscious  of  the  sarcasm  of  his  showing 
such  a  sensitiveness,  after  the  words  they  had  just  ex- 
changed, and  yet  his  defensive  attitude  instinctively  rose. 
"I've  troubled  very  little  about  what  has  or  hasn't  ex- 
isted between  them." 

Her  eyes  continued  to  scan  his  face.  "Yes — I  know 
all  that.  But  has  it  ever  occurred  to  you  that — well,  that 
very  much  this  same  sort  of  thing  may  have  taken  place? 
That,  before  he  proposed  to  Dorothy  Frame,  he  may 
have  proposed  to  her?  And  it's  obvious  enough,  if  he 
did,  that  she  refused  him.  That's  what  I  wonder;  why 
should  she  have  refused  him?" 

"Refused  him !"  Gushing  hesitated  for  a  second,  again 
with  an  impulse  to  defend  what  had  cost  him  such  inti- 
mate pain  from  even  the  touch  of  words;  then  he  re- 
turned to  Mrs.  Herring  a  look  in  which  the  irony  and  the 
sadness  of  her  own  look  were  reflected.  "Ah,  if  she  re- 
fused him — and  no  matter  how  much  she  may  have  felt — 
it  was  because  she  plainly  saw  the  game  was  up  for  her. 


298    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

She's  not  got  the  power  you've  got  of  wide  feeling — of 
paying  for  what  one  can't  see.  You  must  remember  that 
there's  one  thing  she  doesn't  lose,  one  thing  that's  un- 
derneath her  feeling  itself,  and  that  is  a  clear  sense  of 
calculation." 

XXX 

ANNE-MARIE  had  travelled  directly  from  Havre 
to  Paris.  Her  nearest  approach  to  the  formulation 
of  her  plans  had  been  her  decision  to  take  a  little  apart- 
ment there,  so  small  that  her  means  could  also  permit  a 
breath  of  change  and  a  quiet  zrilleguiture  in  the  summers. 
While  she  looked  about  for  something  suitable  she  had 
concluded  to  settle  temporarily  at  a  pension  at  Auteuil, 
of  which  she  had  heard  from  her  relatives,  and  where 
she  would  be  likely  to  find  the  quiet  which  above  all  else 
she  wanted. 

The  room  she  chose,  for  the  fortnight  of  her  stay, 
opened  on  the  small  garden ;  and  it  was  as  she  sat  looking 
out  at  the  shift  of  the  pale  winter  shadows  on  the  walks 
and  the  quiver  of  the  bare  poplars  in  the  wind  that  she 
slowly  began  to  clear  a  way  through  her  thoughts.  Once 
she  was  at  the  point  of  being  established  and  safe  from 
even  the  inconsistencies  which  might  arise  in  herself,  it 
was  no  longer  the  menace  of  her  future  which  she 
dreaded  but  the  insistence  of  her  memories.  Her  first 
requisite  was  for  the  widest  possible  difference  from 
Morte,  some  place  where  there  was  no  reminder  of  all 
that  had  surrounded  Irish.  It  was  one  of  the  results  of 
her  year  with  him  that  now  her  greatest  desire  was  to 
feel  herself  ignored,  and  the  people  in  the  house  were  so 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     299 

far  removed  from  the  contacts  of  her  class  that  their 
gossip  itself,  as  they  sat  at  the  long  table  in  the  salle-a- 
manger,  was  harmless  and  attenuated.  The  very  restric- 
tions and  discomforts  gave  her  an  assurance  of  privacy 
and  protection.  She  liked  the  plainness  of  the  furniture, 
the  heavy  lavender-scented  linen  and  the  tart  odour  of 
the  waxed  floors,  and  she  could  feel,  when  she  closed 
her  door  at  night,  that  a  year  could  pass  as  insensibly 
as  the  days  in  such  obscurity. 

As  she  began  to  rebalance  her  views,  she  realised  that 
this  sense  of  a  refuge  in  the  strictly  conventional  was 
the  first  sign  of  her  return  to  the  habits  and  beliefs  of  her 
country.  Little  by  little  she  had  resumed  the  careful 
standards  which  revived  in  her  with  the  revival  of  her 
early  recollections.  On  her  trip  from  Havre,  as  the  train 
passed  through  the  wide  sweep  of  the  open  country,  with 
the  fields  lying  like  a  grey  reflection  of  the  winter  clouds 
and  the  streams  between  drawn  as  carefully  and  exactly 
as  with  a  pencil,  the  landscape  had  seemed  to  her  to  com- 
pose and  to  take  its  colours,  even  in  this  dull  season,  with 
the  smooth  beauty  which  France  alone  possessed.  She 
had  felt  the  tears  rise  hotly  to  her  eyes.  The  rebirth 
of  her  love  for  it  was  like  the  reward  for  too  long  an 
exile.  Yet  the  more  strongly  the  renewal  of  her  connec- 
tion with  France  reasserted  itself,  the  more  she  realised 
the  exactions  of  its  laws  and  customs.  Once  she  had  set 
herself  to  the  task  of  finding  a  suitable  apartment,  the 
practical  penalties  of  a  life  deflected  from  its  natural 
course  began  to  impress  her  in  the  subtlest  ways.  She 
had  always  acknowledged  them,  but  as  part  of  what  she 
herself  owed  the  society  whose  laws  she  had  outraged 
rather  than  as  the  exaction  which  such  a  codification  of 


300     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

morals  imposed  on  her.  As  she  went  from  house  to 
house,  to  make  her  enquiries,  her  appearance,  she  no- 
ticed, could  not  obscure  the  equivocal  tone  of  her  er- 
rand. She  felt  the  sense  of  unspoken  questions,  of  fur- 
tive glances,  of  an  evasion  here  and  a  polite  declination 
there,  as  she  could  never  have  felt  them  in  London  or 
in  New  York. 

She  had  been  happy  to  find  at  last  a  tiny  entresol  which 
was  within  her  means,  and  to  find  it  in  the  rue  de  Belle- 
chasse.  On  the  first  day  when  she  paused  before  the 
house,  which  was  shabbier  and  more  silent  than  the  house 
in  which  Miss  Morrow  had  lived,  she  vividly  recollected 
the  sense  of  refuge  which,  even  as  a  child,  the  street  had 
given  her  and  how  often  she  had  felt  a  friendly  sympathy 
for  the  long  rows  of  windows  on  either  side,  some  shut- 
tered and  some  open,  but  all  with  the  suggestion  of  a 
deep,  rich  life  led  behind  them.  It  happened  that  an  old 
cousin  of  her  father's,  Madame  de  Jobourg,  kept  on  one 
of  the  upper  floors  of  the  house  an  apartment  for  use  on 
the  rare  occasions  when  she  left  her  home  in  the  Isle-et- 
Vilaine  and  came  to  Paris  for  a  family  duty  or  a  family 
deuil.  She  chanced  to  be  in  town  when  Anne-Marie  made 
her  first  visit  of  inspection ;  and  after  she  had  decided  that 
the  small  apartment  was  what  she  wanted,  Anne-Marie 
had  sent  up  her  card,  with  the  written  request  that 
Madame  la  Marquise  would  receive  her. 

The  season  at  which  she  had  arrived  had  been  that 
when  most  people  were  in  the  country,  at  their  estates. 
She  had  long  since  decided  that,  even  when  the  relatives 
who  would  be  most  definitely  interested  in  her  returned, 
she  would  make  no  advances  which  could  possibly  pro- 
claim her  unaware  of  her  situation.  But  as  she  sat  talk- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     301 

ing  to  Madame  de  Jobourg,  in  the  close  old  room,  with 
its  furniture  so  scrupulously  covered  and  its  faint  odour 
of  dust,  the  reflection  she  caught  of  herself  in  the  long 
mirrors  reassured  her.  Under  the  ornate  lustres — the 
only  ornaments  of  an  interior  given  over  to  the  conserva- 
tions of  piety  rather  than  to  decoration,  and  which  so 
added  to  the  impression  of  height  and  light — she  could 
see  that  she  fitted  into  the  picture  as  it  fitted  the  wide 
spaces  to  which  she  was  fundamentally  accustomed.  At 
least  she  could  say  for  herself  that  she  had  never  denied 
what  she  had  done.  The  lack  of  propriety  in  the  New 
York  life  had  puzzled  her  more  than  her  defiance  of  pro- 
priety in  London ;  and  it  was  like  an  explanation  of  this 
inner  sense  to  find  that,  whether  Madame  de  Jobourg 
knew  of  her  year  with  Irish  or  not,  the  single  fact  which 
existed  for  people  of  this  training  was  that  she  had  been 
divorced.  In  the  plain  old  lady,  so  drooping  and  so  out 
of  date  and  whose  standard  of  conduct  was  more  im- 
placable than  all  other  criteria,  Anne-Marie  recognised,  as 
soon  as  she  had  murmured  her  first  deferential  "chere 
cousine,"  the  existence  of  simple  ethics,  no  matter  how 
closely  they  were  interpreted.  She  had,  after  all,  been 
married  to  an  American,  a  man  without  a  church  and  a 
visible  part  of  no  social  order.  The  misfortune  of  her- 
situation  could  not  conceal  the  perfection  of  her  breed- 
ing. She  knew  to  the  finest  shade  the  difference  between 
obsequiousness  and  pride.  She  did  not  apologise  for  what 
had  taken  place,  but  she  implied  the  most  dignified  regret, 
and  her  strict  view  of  the  conventionalities  of  her  nega- 
tive position  did  not  waver.  She  would  never  expect 
Madame  de  Jobourg  to  receive  her  on  her  days  or  to  oc- 
cupy herself  with  her  in  any  way.  She  merely  stated 


302     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

that,  for  the  sake  of  the  family  name  she  had  resumed, 
she  would  prefer  to  be  established  in  a  house  where  she 
had  the  tacit  protection  of  such  a  presence. 

When  she  had  moved  to  the  entresol,  and  though  the 
elderly  lady's  consent  had  not  gone  beyond  the  most  tech- 
nical formality,  Anne-Marie  began  to  see  that,  limited  as 
they  might  be,  she  could  extract  some  accommodations 
from  her  care  to  behave  with  every  propriety.  It  was  in 
her  tradition  to  treat  age  with  the  most  courteous  defer- 
ence. Her  rare  visits  to  Madame  de  Jobourg,  her  re- 
membrance of  her  cousin's  small  tastes  and  preferences, 
her  attention  to  her  reminiscences  and  her  advice  about 
her  eternal  embroidery,  never  tempted  her  to  stay  when 
some  one  else  was  announced  or  to  enlarge  the  amount 
of  recognition  accorded  her.  But  it  had  given  her  enough 
sense  of  stability  to  enable  her  to  feel  that  her  little  rooms 
had  their  own  dignity.  She  had  gathered  together  her 
parents'  furniture,  which  had  for  years  been  in  the  charge 
of  the  old  servant  who  now  came  to  her  as  her  single 
maid.  The  severe  beauty  of  the  stiff  consoles  and  bergeres, 
softened  by  their  shabbiness,  the  portrait  of  her  grand- 
uncle,  the  late  Cardinal  de  Maupertuis,  and  the  small 
remnants  of  the  family  plate,  surrounded  her  with  reas- 
surances which  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  define,  but 
which  were  none  the  less  definitely  present. 

As  soon  as  she  felt  herself  settled  her  life  had  slipped 
insensibly  into  a  regular  routine — a  short  walk,  a  few 
moments  at  church,  an  occasional  visit,  and  long  hours 
spent  in  the  effort  to  increase  the  neat  piles  of  linen  in 
her  cupboard.  It  was  part  of  her  inheritance  to  be  con- 
tent with  the  significance  of  the  perfunctory.  But  as  she 
sat  sewing,  evening  after  evening,  in  her  silent  little 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     303 

salon,  she  sometimes  caught  the  start  of  her  astonish- 
ment. Beyond  her  still  vital  pain  at  the  loss  of  Irish, 
she  wondered  now  how  she  had  dared  undertake  such  an 
adventure.  If  she  had  risked  it  in  France,  with  the  per- 
ceptions of  a  Frenchman  to  help  her,  the  breach  of  pro- 
priety would  have  seemed  even  less  excusable  but  more 
natural.  The  intrusion  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  element,  as 
she  reflected,  with  a  retrospective  wit,  had  made  its  diffi- 
culties as  practical  as  the  difficulties  of  her  marriage  and 
had  given  it  a  suggestion  of  Irish's  dilettantism. 

She  had  felt  another  kind  of  astonishment  when  she 
had  gone  to  pay  her  respects  to  those  relatives  who  signi- 
fied their  wish  to  see  her.  Their  talk  seemed  to  her  to 
extend  unbrokenly,  from  salon  to  salon,  in  an  equal  igno- 
rance of  what  she  herself  had  learned.  The  older  people 
she  saw  were  compounds  of  astuteness  and  piety.  The 
younger  had  not  looked  beyond  their  carefully  arranged 
boundaries  any  further  than  to  assume  that  they  must 
imitate  the  English  love  of  sport  and  that  all  Americans 
were  vulgar  and  over-dressed.  In  no  instance  had  she 
been  able  to  penetrate  beyond  these  conclusions ;  and  her 
own  experiences  had  seemed  like  the  height  of  initiation 
in  contrast. 

It  was  not  so  much  that  these  localisms  were  strange  as 
the  inevitable  localism  which  all  fixed  rules  must  assume 
to  a  woman  whose  life  has  been  varied.  Even  conduct 
like  Madame  von  Alfons'  had  its  rules.  The  first  time 
she  had  gone  to  the  large  hotel  where  the  Maupertuis 
family  relics  tempered  the  modern  gilt  furniture,  and  in 
spite  of  the  lack,  in  her  reception,  of  the  consideration 
Madame  von  Alfons  had  shown  her  at  Morte,  Anne- 
Marie  had  been  surprised  to  find  herself  condemning  her 


304     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

cousin  for  being  unfeeling  rather  than  for  being  im- 
moral. While  she  watched  Mimi  dutifully  divide  her- 
self between  her  husband,  her  children  and  the  person 
without  whom,  as  she  admitted,  she  found  life  too  un- 
sympathetic, she  had  been  first  puzzled  and  then  lightly 
disdainful.  To  treat  such  things  so  regularly  and  frankly 
made  them  small  and  parochial.  She  was  glad,  as  she 
remembered  the  terms  of  her  compact  with  Irish,  that 
if  she  had  not  been  vulgarly  insistent  about  the  loss  of 
her  reputation,  she  had  at  least  acted  on  a  large  and 
free  scale.  If  she  had  continued  to  live  amongst  these 
people,  and  without  a  wider  vision,  she  could  see  the 
compacts  she  would  have  made  and  which  would  have 
seemed  important  to  her — compacts  at  which  she  now 
smiled.  It  was  another  reminder  of  the  extension  of  her 
own  imagination.  It  was  not  only  the  rules  of  the  so- 
ciety around  her  which  appeared  rigid,  but  also  its  ca- 
pacity to  feel.  All  it  saw  was  that  one  either  remained 
permanently  outside  its  privileges,  like  Miss  Morrow  or 
like  the  American  aunt  through  whom  Miss  Morrow  had 
known  her  and  who,  in  spite  of  the  happiest  marriage, 
was  always  a  person  who  had  come  from  the  strange 
world  la-bas;  or  one  was  fundamentally  absorbed,  as 
she  would  have  been  absorbed,  into  a  life  whose  com- 
plex conformities  hid  the  simplest  bases. 

Yet  in  spite  of  her  surprise  at  these  restrictions,  she 
found  herself  gradually  accepting  them.  She  could  feel 
that  her  judgments  were  insensibly  becoming  narrower, 
her  code  more  exact  and  her  tastes  less  pronounced.  It 
was  as  strange  to  compare  this  even,  reposeful  life  with 
her  days  at  Morte,  one  sombre  and  the  next  brilliant,  as  it 
was  strange,  when  she  looked  in  her  mirror,  to  note  the 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    305 

change  in  her  appearance.  As  she  put  on  the  plain,  dark 
dresses  she  habitually  wore  she  remembered  the  amount 
of  space  in  Stratton  street  given  up  to  her  wardrobe — 
that  Irish  had  never  seen  a  rare  combination  of  tints  or 
a  good  texture  that  he  had  not  insisted  she  must  have  a 
dress  or  a  wrap  of  it.  To  look  back  at  this  extravagance 
now  was  to  understand  that  it  befitted  only  a  woman  of 
no  reputation  or  an  American.  If  she  felt  traces  of  her 
former  habits,  the  time  when  she  had  had  to  pay  a  penalty 
for  them  was  still  so  near  that,  with  a  shift  of  her  eyes, 
she  could  make  the  comparison  and  see  what  she  had 
gained.  The  faint  fine  line  drawn  across  her  forehead 
reminded  her  that  she  had  learned  her  lesson  of  the  dis- 
parity between  desire  and  achievement. 

At  the  New  Year  she  had  sent,  among  her  few  greet- 
ings, a  brief  note  to  Fresneuil's  French  address.  She  had 
noticed  that  in  his  reply  he  took  care  to  make  it  plain 
that  he  had  left  London  and  was  permanently  established 
in  his  Paris  apartment.  The  exact  courtesy  of  his  letter 
had  not  attempted  to  deny  his  eagerness  to  see  her;  and 
after  a  delay  during  which  she  had  debated  the  propriety 
of  her  doing  so,  she  had  accepted  in  good  faith  his  impli- 
cation that  he  was  now  occupied  with  only  his  own  af- 
fairs and  had  written  to  him  that  she  would  receive  him. 

Her  strangest  sense,  on  the  afternoon  when  he  came, 
was  that  he  was  too  thoroughly  French  to  have  expected 
in  her  any  precesses  of  reconstruction.  He  seemed  in- 
stinctively to  know  that  after  such  an  experience  one  re- 
constructed only  if  one  distorted  simple  facts,  and  he  had 
evidently  never  questioned  the  clearness  of  her  inner  view. 
She  had  accepted  both  the  privileges  and  the  exactions 


306     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

of  what  she  had  undertaken,  and  he  had  divined  that  all 
she  needed  was  time  to  make  her  resigned  to  the  fact 
that  both  the  happiness  and  unhappiness  of  the  matter 
were  over.  She  could  see  that  he  viewed  it  as  directly 
as  she.  But  it  was  also  evident  that  he  understood  that 
if  she  were  a  little  scarred  she  was  none  the  less  exquisite. 
The  women  whom  he  knew  with  pasts,  in  the  usual  sense, 
she  could  picture  as  probably  complacent  and  com- 
fortable— sometimes  even  maternal,  with  the  angles  of 
their  perceptions  smoothly  rubbed  down  and  an  almost 
inevitable  coarsening  into  the  ordinary  lines.  As  she 
gave  him  her  hand  and  let  him  measure  the  gravity  of  her 
eyes,  she  felt  that  he  paid  tribute  to  her  special  quality 
by  recognising  that  she  had  kept  herself  free  from  the 
usual  signs  of  such  experiences. 

This  instant  reassurance  of  the  discriminations  of  his 
taste  had  dispelled  any  difficulty  which,  in  such  surround- 
ings, she  might  have  felt  in  seeing  him.  He  had  made  no 
faintest  allusion  to  Irish,  to  Morte  or  to  their  meeting 
in  Stratton  street,  and  they  had  begun  to  talk  with  the 
easy  disregard  of  explanations  natural  to  them  both.  He 
congratulated  her  on  the  charm  of  her  little  rooms,  and 
they  smiled  together  over  the  intricate  beauties  in  which 
all  old  Parisian  houses  abound  and  which  lurk  most  in 
inner  courts  and  hidden  bits  of  garden.  He  had  brought 
her  some  books  and  the  new  Odeon  play,  and  Anne- 
Marie  could  feel  the  rise  of  her  interest  and  the  faint 
glow  which  warmed  her  responses. 

The  light  had  faded  to  a  silvery  grey  and  the  bonne 
was  on  the  threshold  with  a  lamp  when  Fresneuil  rose 
to  go. 

"I  cannot  tell  you,  madame,  what  a  happiness  it  has 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     307 

been  to  me  to  see  you  again.  You  will  not  forget  your 
promises :  I  may  come  next  week,  and  I  may  bring  you 
the  Vignys  you  do  not  know  and  the  photographs  of  the 
little  mantel  at  Fontainebleau  which,  in  its  more  ornate 
way,  still  resembles  yours.  Ah,  if  you  love  good  man- 
tels I  should  so  like  to  have  you  see  ours — at  la  Reveilliere 
— the  home  which  is  my  old  one  and  which  now  becomes 
mine  again.  Some  of  them  are  severe,  but  the  largest 
salon  and  the  Salle-d'Armes  have  magnificent  ones,  and 
they  are  all  beautifully  set.  Have  you  ever  noticed  how 
the  height  of  a  chimney  piece,  in  proportion  to  its  decora- 
tion, can  make  it  imposing  or  unimportant?  They  knew 
balance,  then " 

She  glanced  pensively  up  at  him.  As  his  face  lit,  in 
the  dim  diffusion  of  the  lamplight,  she  understood  that 
this  was  Fresneuil  as  she  had  never  seen  or  heard  him — 
neither  Irish's  Fresneuil  nor  the  cosmopolitan,  but  the 
man  of  his  own  race.  She  knew  that  he  had  never  dis- 
persed his  views  or  his  quality;  yet  now  he  had  all  the 
freedom  of  his  own  position  and  the  privileges  of  that 
position  to  accentuate  him. 

"Tell  me,  monsieur — you  remain  in  Paris?" 

"Yes.  I  shall  be  here  for  the  next  months.  There  are 
some  necessary  repairs  being  made  at  la  Reveilliere,  and 
I  shall  run  down  on  and  off  to  see  to  them." 

"And  your  mother — you  have  spoken  to  me  of  her; 
she  remains  there  during  the  work  ?" 

"No.  She  and  my  aunt  are  now  with  me  here — at 
my  apartment.  It  was  really  impossible,  down  in  the 
country.  Poor  ladies,  they  find  the  quarters  very  cramped 
and  my  menage  de  gar^on  very  uncomfortable ;  but  none 
the  less  they  remain  with  me " 


308     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

He  broke  off.  She  saw  that  in  his  face  there  was  a 
look  compounded  both  of  a  sudden  pained  embarrass- 
ment and  of  a  vivid  regret.  A  second  later  she  under- 
stood, and  she  felt  that  her  own  expression  changed  to 
reflect  it.  In  an  instant  all  that  separated  her  from  him 
and  from  any  share  in  the  life  and  the  projects  of  such 
people  as  his  mother  rose  in  her  mind.  His  delicacy  could 
not  disguise  from  her  the  fact  that  he  was  as  much  aware 
of  the  separation  as  she.  The  smallest  incidents  of 
what  he  must  have  seen  and  divined  in  Stratton  street 
rose  in  her  mind ;  not  only  the  things  which,  in  spite  of 
all  her  care,  must  have  seemed  crass,  but  also  her  in- 
evitable confidences  to  him.  For  a  moment  they  seemed 
to  her  to  be  back  in  the  Morte  woods  and  in  all  the  com- 
plexity of  circumstance  in  which  they  had  talked  beside 
the  river. 

She  made  a  gesture  which  was  amplified  with  her 
sense  of  all  these  recollections,  as  she  rose  to  bid  him 
good-bye. 

"Yes,  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  you  again,  to  have  the 
books  and  to  hear  your  news.  It  has  been  charming;" 
she  hesitated,  as  he  raised  her  hand  to  his  lips,  and  her 
smile  quivered  a  little  under  the  pressure  of  her  thoughts. 
"It  is  when  one  feels  one's  self  alone  that  charming 
things  count — when  one  feels,  as  I  have  come  to  feel, 
not  that  life  is  so  terrible,  but  that  it  is  so  simple!" 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    309 


XXXI 

ONE  morning  in  April,  when  Fresneuil  reached  the 
house  in  the  rue  de  Bellechasse,  he  heard  that  since 
it  was  a  Feast  day  Madame  du  Chastel  had  gone  to  a 
late  mass.  The  old  servant  who  gave  him  the  informa- 
tion had  come,  in  the  last  weeks,  to  have  for  him  the 
kindly  interest  of  a  person  bred  to  the  service  of  such 
families,  and  she  advised  him,  if  his  errand  with 
madame  were  pressing — as  it  appeared  to  be — to  follow 
her  to  church.  She  went,  as  a  rule,  not  to  the  church 
of  her  parish,  but  to  S.  Germain-des-Pres,  where  one 
of  the  cures  was  a  friend  of  Madame  de  Jobourg;  and 
after  mass,  especially  after  late  mass,  she  was  apt  to  walk 
to  the  Luxembourg  gardens  and  sit  there. 

Fresneuil  thanked  her,  and  after  leaving  the  house  he 
turned  in  the  direction  of  the  Faubourg  which  would  lead 
him  to  the  church.  As  he  hurried  along,  with  the  radi- 
ance of  the  spring  morning  about  him,  he  was  more  and 
more  imperatively  aware  of  his  need  to  see  Anne-Marie. 
Yet  his  excuse  for  coming,  and  at  such  an  hour,  was 
that  he  was  fulfilling  her  need  rather  than  his.  When  he 
had  opened  his  morning  papers  and  read  the  news  which 
so  intimately  concerned  her,  he  had  hesitated  and  debated 
his  right  to  take  it  to  her  out  of  consideration  for  her 
feeling.  Beneath  his  vivid  eagerness  to  see  what  her  re- 
ception of  it  would  be,  he  felt  the  reassurance  of  an  ac- 
quired right  of  friendship.  Since  their  meeting,  soon 
after  the  New  Year,  he  had  seen  her,  not  perhaps  con- 
stantly, but  with  ritual  regularity.  She  never  allowed 
him  to  come  except  at  the  intervals  she  had  stated  or 


310     MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

unduly  to  prolong  his  visits.  But  he  had  had  his  reward, 
first  in  her  frank  pleasure  in  his  companionship  and  then 
in  her  gradual  dependence  on  it. 

The  fact  that  they  had  never  spoken  of  Irish  or  of  that 
part  of  her  life  which,  as  he  could  see  she  now  realised, 
he  had  so  eagerly  watched,  had  determined  him  to  risk 
the  allusions  which  his  news  would  require  him  to  make. 
It  had  not  only  been  his  sense  of  her  intact  distinction 
which  was  heightened  by  this  silence — a  silence  which 
was  not  the  embarrassed  avoidance  of  a  term  or  a  name, 
but  rather  the  deeper  silence  of  a  perfect  reticence.  He 
had  felt  all  the  ebb  and  flow  of  her  feeling  behind  the 
barrier  he  could  not  penetrate.  The  look  of  quiet  fatigue 
with  which  she  sometimes  greeted  him,  with  a  turn  of 
her  head  in  his  direction  as  if  she  turned  away  from  the 
havoc  of  her  thoughts,  the  absent  quality  in  her  smile,  the 
light  tremulousness  of  her  hand,  with  the  fine  bones  show- 
ing under  the  yellowish  skin,  were  constant  suggestions 
of  her  mystery  and  of  the  combats  and  adjustments  neces- 
sary in  a  woman  made  of  such  delicate  material.  It  had 
seemed  to  Fresneuil  that  if  she  had  lost  what  was  techni- 
cally known  as  perfection,  it  was  he  who  saw  both  how 
fine  she  had  kept  her  discriminations  and  how  much  their 
maintenance  had  cost  her. 

The  last  mass  was  over  when  he  reached  the  church; 
and  after  he  had  pushed  aside  the  leather  curtain  in 
front  of  the  door  he  made  her  out  at  once  among  the 
few  people  who  remained.  As  his  eyes  became  accus- 
tomed to  the  comparative  obscurity,  he  felt  himself  deeply 
affected  by  something  in  her  attitude.  In  the  dim  brown 
light  her  kneeling  figure  was  motionless ;  with  her  face 
raised,  her  hands  clasped  and  her  wide  eyes  set  in  front 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL    311 

of  her,  she  reminded  him  of  the  thin  pointed  flames  of 
the  candles  on  the  altar.  All  that  she  had  experienced 
was  expressed  in  the  way  she  knelt.  He  had  never  so 
clearly  understood  as  at  this  moment  what  her  inner 
suffering  must  have  been,  and  what  exactions  her  suc- 
cessive failures  must  have  put  upon  her;  or  the  change 
from  the  brilliancy  of  her  life  to  a  renouncement  which 
had  no  brilliancy,  but  only  the  same  pale  steadiness  as  her 
face.  Her  resignation  seemed  to  him  deeper  than  resig- 
nation. Her  delicate  quality  had  been  so  bruised  that 
something  fundamental  had  changed  in  her.  He  could 
fancy  that  when  she  had  first  prayed  here  she  must  still 
have  been  bent  by  the  weight  of  her  loss  and  her  uncer- 
tainties, with  little  left  her  beyond  the  emotional  relief 
of  supplication.  Now  it  was  the  measure  for  him  of  how 
far  her  difficulties  had  driven  her  that  the  way  she  knelt 
was  not  passionate  but  correct.  She  was  no  longer  vitally 
concerned  with  her  own  needs.  She  had  recovered  a 
vague  resemblance  to  the  woman  of  Catholic  family  who 
sees  in  her  religion  the  most  consecrated  form  of  custom. 
For  the  first  time,  as  he  stood  intently  watching  her,  the 
distances  she  had  travelled  became  actual  to  him,  and  he 
felt  that  his  eyes  grew  suddenly  warm  and  dim. 

They  left  the  church  together,  and  by  common  consent 
they  turned  up  the  long  passage  of  the  rue  Bonaparte, 
where  the  light,  which  gathered  into  glistening  squares 
at  the  crossings,  darkened  to  a  thinly  spread  silver. 
In  a  few  moments  more  they  had  entered  the  nearest 
gate  of  the  gardens.  As  they  walked,  and  though  they 
had  exchanged  their  usual  light  observations,  which  never 
had  the  quality  of  banalities,  Fresneuil  had  been  increas- 
ingly conscious  of  Anne-Marie's  sense  of  his  purpose.  It 


312     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

was  not  until  they  had  paused  and  had  drawn  forward 
two  of  the  yellow  chairs  close  to  the  Medici  fountain, 
where  the  drip  of  water  was  pleasantly  confused  with  the 
cries  of  the  children  who  played  in  the  allee  beyond,  that 
she  turned  to  him,  not  with  any  invitation  to  speak,  but 
with  a  permission  to  do  so  in  her  gravely  attentive  look. 

"I  wanted  to  tell  you — I  felt  I  might  perhaps  assume 
the  privilege  of  telling  you,"  he  began  directly,  "that 
yesterday  Mr.  Irish  and  Miss  Frame  were  married  in 
London." 

She  took  the  newspaper  he  held  out  to  her  and  he  saw 
her  eyelids  tremble  and  her  lips  press  more  closely  to- 
gether. A  second  later  she  raised  her  head  and  looked 
fixedly  in  front  of  her. 

"I  believed  you  would  not  consider  it  a  liberty."  He 
hurried  on,  as  if  he  were  at  last  giving  words  to  the 
suppressed  thoughts  which  had  so  thickly  accumulated. 
"Since  the  marriage  had  evidently  taken  place  rather 
earlier  than  one  expected  it  to,  and  since  I,  at  least,  up 
to  the  last  moment  never  felt  sure " 

She  turned  her  face  back  to  his. 

"Of  me?"  she  asked  briefly. 

"Ah,  madame,  always  and  forever  of  you!  But  not 
of  Mr.  Irish.  Can  you  understand,"  he  clasped  his  hands, 
"that  what  I  have  dreaded  for  you  beyond  everything  else 
was  that  he  would  change  that  erratic  mind  of  his — I  may 
say  it,  since  we  are  talking  openly? — that  he  might  con- 
tinue to  plead  with  you?  I  knew — I  was  then  still  in 
London — how  he  had  pled  with  you,  at  first.  I  remem- 
ber all  the  letters  and  telegrams.  They  were  not  what  I 
dreaded.  I  knew  you  would  answer  them  as  you  did  an- 
swer them — by  silence.  What  I  feared  was  that  at  the 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     313 

last  moment  before  his  marriage  he  would  realise  where 
he  stood,  what  he  had  done,  what  he  was  losing — and 
that  even  at  the  eleventh  hour  he  might  put  you  through 
the  miseries  of  a  reconsideration." 

"Yes ;  that  I,  too,  have  dreaded."  She  spoke  in  a  low 
tone,  again  with  her  eyes  set  straight  before  her. 

"You  may  have  had  your  dread,  but  you  have  always 
been  clear  and  always  wonderful.  If  you  knew  what  it 
has  meant  to  me  to  see  you  live,  as  you  have  lived,  and 
when  I  could  remember  so  much  to  make  it  difficult  for 

you  to  live  at  all !  Sometimes,  in  the  last  three 

months,  when  I  have  left  you,  I  acknowledge  that  I  have 
rebelled  against  the  intolerable  injustices  of  it  all;  ah,  not 
the  fact  that  it  did  not  result  in  your  marriage  and  in 
your  established  happiness,  but — no,  madame,  you  will 
allow  me? — but  the  fact  that  you  should  have  given  so 
much.  Such  priceless  things  as  even  I,  an  outsider,  have 
seen  you  give!" 

She  drew  a  long  breath  and  her  glance  fell  to  the 
paper  she  still  held.  "It  is  announced — is  it  not? — with 
the  elaboration  of  the  announcements  of  royalty!"  Her 
dim  smile  showed  for  an  instant,  and  then  he  saw  her 
tears  well  up.  "Ah,  well,  if  I  gave — if  I  have  had  my 
moments  of  rebellion — at  least  everything  is  over.  That 
you  must  remember,  you  who  give  me  so  much  friendship. 
My  life  has  been  enriched.  But  then,  too,  I  acknowl- 

"You  have  suffered?    Ah,  but  you  have  suffered!" 
"It  is  not  so  much  what  I  have  suffered,"  she  said 
slowly,  "but  what  I  have  lost." 
"You  mean  the  loss  of  Mr.  Irish  ?" 


314     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"I  mean  the  loss  of  something  in  myself ;  I  mean  the 
loss,"  she  met  his  look  again,  "of  my  position." 

For  an  instant  their  eyes  exchanged  quick  meanings, 
and  Fresneuil  paled  a  little. 

"If  you  could  know  what  it  was,  to  see  what  you  were 
losing,  to  be  helpless,  and  yet " 

"I  should  like  you  to  understand — since  we  will  speak 
of  these  things  once  and  never  again,"  she  said  clearly. 
"When  I  left  America  with  Mr.  Irish  I  knew  that  that 
loss  mattered.  But  one  does  not  know  the  real  conces- 
sions involved  in  such  a  step  until  one  takes  it.  If  I  had 
known — but  what  can  one  know  of  past  possibilities, 
unless  one  is  a  sentimentalist?  You  and  I,"  her  smile 
gleamed  again,  "are  scarcely  sentimentalists.  No ;  I  want 
you  to  see  that  I  frankly  acknowledge  what  my  step  cost 
me ;  I  want  you  to  see  that,  if  I  pay  for  my  declassement, 
I  pay  with  my  eyes  open." 

"Ah,  madame,  have  I  not  seen  it  ?  Has  it  not  occupied 
my  thoughts  beyond  everything  else  in  life !" 

Fresneuil  broke  off.  He  had  the  sense  that  the  ques- 
tion as  to  whether  she  realised  how  intimately  his  per- 
sonal feeling  was  concerned  was  answered  before  she 
could  answer  him.  His  exclamation  seemed  to  him  to  be 
his  final  protest  against  the  problems  between  which 
he  had  stood  so  unhappily  and  so  irresolute — the  expres- 
sion of  the  helplessness  with  which  he  himself  had  to 
pay  the  penalty  of  her  lapse  of  conduct.  In  spite  of  his 
width  of  experience  and  contact,  he  knew  he  could  apply 
to  the  woman  he  married  only  the  closest  provincial 
standards.  He  was  even  less  free  to  marry  where  he 
pleased  than  most  men  of  his  race  and  class,  because  of 
the  restoration  of  his  line  to  him,  his  recovered  home  and 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     315 

his  reunited  family.  Yet  he  could  never  remember  the 
days  of  his  first  knowledge  of  her  without  remembering 
that,  even  then,  what  had  most  struck  him  was  the  sad 
incongruity  between  her  and  the  position  she  occupied. 
It  had  become  the  most  intimate  form  of  his  difficulty 
that  she  should  have  changed — that  she  should  be  free — 
that  she  should  resume,  under  his  eyes,  and  so  beautifully, 
the  outward  signs  of  conventionality.  As  she  sat  beside 
him  the  different  carriage  of  her  head,  not  less  high  but 
with  an  assurance  quieter  and  less  spirited,  and  the  way 
her  black  dress  fell  from  her  thin  shoulders,  touched  him 
with  an  inimitable  pathos.  The  next  instant  his  eyes  had 
dropped  to  the  hand  from  which  she  had  drawn  her  glove. 
On  it,  a  vivid  flash  of  green  against  the  pale  skin,  he  saw 
Irish's  emerald.  He  knew  that  it  was  the  only  jewel  she 
had  kept  and  that  she  never  wore  it  except  when  she  was 
alone — that  only  accident  had  disclosed  it  to  him  now. 
But  it  was  the  final  touch  to  his  sense  of  the  futility  of  his 
rebellion. 

All  through  his  struggle  with  these  unalterable  facts 
he  had  felt  himself  sustained  by  the  knowledge  that  she 
herself  would  have  respected  him  less  if  he  had  been  will- 
ing to  omit  these  tests  of  conduct.  It  was  she  who  broke 
their  silence  now,  with  a  quick  gesture. 

"You  must  let  me  say  it  again.  You  have  been  perfect 
— d'une  delicatesse  parfaite.  Ah,  but  I  am  grateful  for 
it !  And  as  for  all  that  has  not  been  said,  that  can  never 
be  said,  between  us "  she  paused  uncertainly. 

He  appeared  for  a  moment  to  share  her  uncertainty. 
"At  least,"  he  said  in  a  low  tone,  "I  have  tried,  even  in 
my  thoughts,  to  show  you  how  profoundly  I  reverence 
you " 


316     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"But  that  I  know  you  have  done,  and  so  exquisitely !  It 
is  not  only  that  you  have  surrounded  with  consideration 
a  memory — a  memory  which  has  its  great  beauty  for 
me "  she  hesitated  again  and  her  whole  carriage  im- 
perceptibly stiffened  with  a  touch  of  pride.  "But  you 
have  also  avoided  even  the  suspicion  that  I  would  tolerate 
any  compromises  with  dignity,  any  concession  to  laws  you 
and  I  know  are  inexorable."  She  held  out  her  hand. 
"That  is  why  I  have  said  this  to  you;  I  wanted  you  to 
see  that  I  understood.  Let  us  keep  all  we  can,  by  our 
mutual  understanding — all  our  friendship  and  all  its 
charm.  But  never  forget  that  I  have  the  keenest  sense 
of  what  I  owe  you." 

Fresneuil  had  risen  and  he  bowed  over  her  hand,  in 
response  to  her  gesture  of  dismissal.  The  courtesy  of 
his  manner  had  never  been  more  profound;  yet  the  last 
look  he  gave  her  lit,  for  a  second,  with  the  most  impul- 
sive feeling  she  had  ever  seen  him  show. 

"Ah,  madame — si  vous  saviez " 

"Mais  mon  ami,  je  le  sais — mais  si,  mais  si,  je  le  sais." 
She  faltered  for  a  second,  with  her  eyes  still  wide  and 
grave.  There  flashed  across  her  face,  as  if  in  contradic- 
tion to  her  words,  the  same  puzzled  expression  she  had 
had  when  some  one  of  Irish's  Americanisms  seemed  to  her 
incomprehensible.  Then,  with  an  inclination  of  her  head, 
she  added  briefly :  "Thank  you  again,  and  d  bientot." 

As  his  figure  receded  in  the  direction  of  the  palace  and 
passed  down  the  long  flight  of  steps  and  out  of  her  sight, 
Anne-Marie's  glance  fell  absently  to  the  fantastic  pattern 
which  the  shadow  of  the  young  leaves  threw  on  the  walk 
at  her  feet. 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     317 

Her  thoughts  had  wandered  beyond  the  details  of  the 
information  contained  in  the  newspaper  which  still  lay 
in  her  lap.  They  had  gone  irrelevantly  back,  first  to  one 
or  two  of  her  days  with  Irish,  then  to  the  day  when  she 
had  consented  to  marry  Gushing,  and  finally  to  a  recollec- 
tion which  was  fainter  yet  which  she  could  nevertheless 
vividly  evoke — that  of  the  day  when  Miss  Morrow,  look- 
ing at  her  so  uncertainly,  had  agreed  to  become  her  guard- 
ian. She  felt  a  flash  of  irony  at  the  fact  that  these  cir- 
cumstances, so  wide  in  their  difference,  should  have 
brought  her  to  the  point  where  her  single  desire  was  to 
foresee  her  surprises.  The  sharpest  astonishment  she 
had  ever  known  had  been  at  unexpected  turns  in  her  own 
feeling.  It  was,  perhaps,  the  penalty  of  her  varied  life 
that  she  should  have  become  aware  of  unexpected  and 
unaccountable  differentiations,  and  that  her  vision  should 
at  times  be  blurred  and  uncertain.  But  she  was  aware 
that,  in  the  last  months,  this  sense  of  a  confusion  in  the 
furthest  depths  of  her  mind— the  sense  of  an  uncertainty 
beneath  all  her  recently  acquired  certainty — had  never 
possessed  her  more  strongly  than  at  this  moment. 

It  was  an  impulse  connected  with  this  reflection  which 
made  her  raise  her  hands  and  press  them  against  her  eyes. 
As  she  did  so  she  was  conscious  that  she  had  shut  out 
her  present  world  as  she  shut  out  the  vivid  light,  the 
glancing  figures  of  the  children  and  the  fresh  brown 
colour  of  the  upturned  earth  in  the  border  beside  her,  and 
that  she  was  enclosed  in  an  inner  world  where,  down  to 
the  depths  of  all  her  premises,  there  was  a  sudden  com- 
motion. She  had  these  insurgent  rushes  of  feeling  fre- 
quently. It  was  impossible,  she  supposed,  to  forget  one's 
experiences  so  completely  that  they  could  not  unsettle  one 


318     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

and  make  one  restless.  Yet  her  impulses  of  rebellion 
always  led  her  in  the  same  direction,  and  back  to  the  early 
times  of  her  marriage.  Across  the  intervening  years,  her 
happiness  then  had  come  to  have  for  her  a  touching  and 
ineffable  quality — the  quality  of  feeling  when  it  is  fresh- 
est and  most  spontaneous.  The  recollection  always  blew 
through  her  mind  like  a  keen  sea  wind.  It  carried  her 
now  up  and  beyond  the  shifts  and  compacts  which  were 
the  tolls  of  experience. 

It  had  seemed  to  be  the  strange  survival  of  Cushing's 
quality  that  he  should  have  assumed  this  particular  place 
in  her  thoughts.  She  had  gradually  come  to  feel,  when 
she  was  confused  and  when  her  hard  mental  processes 
confused  her  more,  that  the  one  thing  she  could  always 
have  been  sure  of  was  the  large  inclusiveness  of  his  im- 
agination. He  had  been  more  certain  of  his  feelings  than 
any  one  she  had  ever  known:  not  certain  of  his  stand- 
points, as  she  had  once  thought,  but  of  his  feelings.  It 
was  he  who  would  have  understood  that  when  one  had 
had  some  opportunity  for  comparison  and  selection,  what 
counted  most  was  what  would  have  seemed  to  Fresneuil, 
and  to  Irish,  too,  the  last  paradox — that  one  should  be 
able  to  yield  everything  to  the  adventurous  beauty  of  the 
indefinite.  Her  mind  took  another  quick  turn.  She  won- 
dered whether,  if  Gushing  had  been  in  Fresneuil's  place, 
he  would  have  been  willing  to  accept  her,  with  her  his- 
tory. She  asked  herself  the  question,  but  every  memory 
she  had  of  him  answered  it.  Though  he  would  never  for 
the  smallest  instant  have  ceased  to  remember  what  she 
had  lost,  was  there  any  slightest  doubt  that,  if  he  had 
loved  her,  he  would  have  accepted  everything?  It  would 
have  been  natural  to  the  height  and  breadth  of  his  feel- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     319 

ing  to  suffer  because  of  her  liaison,  and  yet  to  forgive  it; 
as  natural  as  it  would  be  to  her — she  found  herself  sit- 
ting upright,  with  her  hands  fallen  to  her  lap,  smiling  at 
the  idea — as  natural  as  it  would  be  to  her,  if  she  heard 
now  that  he  had  lived  the  intervening  year  without  a  love 
affair  of  his  own,  to  be  a  little  surprised  at  him. 


XXXII 

MADAME  ANNE-MARIE  DU  CHASTEL,  20, 
bis,  rue  de  Bellechasse." 

As  a  motor  cab  hurried  Gushing  across  Paris  he  drew 
out  the  memorandum  and  studied  it  again.  It  had  been 
brought  to  his  hotel  ten  minutes  before,  by  one  of 
Madame  von  Alfons'  footmen;  and  ever  since  the  first 
instant  he  had  looked  at  it  and  at  the  definite  opportunity 
which  it  represented,  he  had  had  the  sardonic  sense  that 
already  he  felt  a  faint  trace  of  his  wife's  old  power  to 
create  in  him  the  keen  attitude  of  expectation. 

It  had  been  only  an  hour  before,  when  he  sat  smoking 
in  his  sitting  room,  with  the  contents  of  his  trunks  strewn 
about  him  and  his  eyes  following  the  long  coil  of  traffic 
which  wound  like  a  broken  stream  through  the  last  glow 
of  sunlight  in  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  that  he  had  made 
his  completely  unexpected  decision.  He  called  it  unex- 
pected, and  yet  he  was  aware  of  his  gradual  preparation 
for  it,  in  the  preceding  weeks  of  his  stay.  It  had  perhaps 
been  the  fact  that  he  was  to  leave  for  America  to-morrow 
which  had  so  suddenly  determined  him  to  make  a  move 
which,  a  few  hours  later,  would  be  definitely  impossi- 
ble. However  it  was,  his  brief  note  to  Madame  von 


320     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

Alfons  asking  for  her  cousin's  present  address  had  at- 
tempted to  disguise  the  definition  of  his  position  from  her 
no  more  than  from  himself.  There  were  certain  money 
matters,  he  acknowledged,  which,  in  view  of  her  present 
circumstances,  he  had  concluded  that  he  ought  to  discuss 
with  Anne-Marie.  But  his  reason  for  asking  where  she 
could  be  found  was  the  simple  one  that  he  wished  to  see 
her — granting  that,  on  her  side,  she  was  willing  to  re- 
ceive him. 

Madame  von  Alfons'  reply,  enclosing  the  address,  had 
made  him  smile  as  he  read  it.  Its  courteous  tone,  exact 
and  scrupulously  careful,  had  its  inimitable  implications 
that  he  was,  after  all,  another  type  of  human  being,  whose 
desires  one  could  not  foretell  and  whose  mental  processes 
were  untraceable.  She  was  glad  to  tell  him  where  her 
cousin  was ;  he  would  find  her  living  very  quietly  at  the 
address  she  enclosed,  and  she  felt  that  she  could  predict 
that  Anne-Marie  would  see  him.  There  -was  a  touch,  at 
the  last,  before  she  signed  herself  with  many  salutations, 
which  showed  that  already  she  had  made,  in  her  quick 
mind,  a  combination  between  his  visit  and  the  possibility 
of  material  gain  for  Anne-Marie.  She  plainly  indicated 
that  she  had  not  been  in  sympathy  with  her  cousin's  fan- 
tastic refusal  to  receive  any  settlement  from  him,  and 
that  this  would  be  an  opportunity  to  show  his  generosity, 
if  he  now  cared  to  renew  an  offer  of  it. 

Yet  adroit  as  such  methods  were,  what  he  had  always 
thought  of  as  her  supreme  astuteness  appeared  to  Gush- 
ing, as  he  read  the  note,  to  be  little  more  than  a  vast  igno- 
rance. The  exactions  of  her  code  for  once  lacked  reality. 
He  had  yielded  to  an  impulse  the  worth  of  which  was  its 
exemption  from  the  laws  of  logic  and  of  consecutive  con- 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     321 

duct.  The  warmth  of  the  late  sun  on  his  face,  the  delays 
at  the  crossings,  with  the  hum  of  the  racing  motor  en- 
gine mingling  with  the  clatter  of  trams,  the  glancing  in- 
telligence of  the  faces  he  passed,  the  gradual  gathering 
of  the  streets  into  darker  and  higher  slits,  acted  on  him 
like  the  stimulants  into  which  all  outer  circumstances  are 
transformed  when  a  disused  energy  has  been  retouched 
with  life.  It  scarcely  mattered  that  his  visit  might  have 
the  air  of  an  intrusion.  Whether  consistently  with  his 
own  attitude  or  not,  he  had  brought  about  an  opportu- 
nity to  grasp  some  of  those  fugitive  moments  into  which 
so  much  of  the  sense  of  living  can  be  compressed.  If  he 
had  been  younger  he  would  perhaps  never  have  risked  it ; 
there  were  countless  deterrent  forces  against  the  definite 
and  insistent  press  of  his  desire.  As  his  cab  turned  into 
the  familiar  street,  from  which  the  sunshine  had  already 
passed,  it  gave  him  a  faint  sense  of  sadness  to  think  that 
his  capacity  to  feel  should  have  persisted,  in  any  of  its 
first  strength,  across  such  an  arid  waste  of  experience. 

He  waited  in  the  cab  while  the  concierge  took  up  his 
card,  on  which  he  had  written  a  brief  message.  The  man 
delayed  for  some  moments ;  but  when  he  returned  it  was 
with  the  information  that  madame  was  in  and  would  see 
him.  Gushing  mounted  the  short  flight  of  stairs,  to  where 
the  maid  stood  waiting  at  an  open  door.  He  saw  that  she 
turned  back,  into  an  inner  room,  and  he  heard  his  name 
pronounced;  and  as  he  stepped  forward  in  response  to 
her  gesture,  he  spared  a  moment  of  astonishment  to  the 
ease  with  which  important  occasions  bring  themselves 
about. 

Anne-Marie  was  standing  by  the  window — he  could 
imagine  that  she  had  stood  in  the  same  intent  attitude  and 


322     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

with  the  same  motionlessness  ever  since  his  message  had 
reached  her — and  for  some  seconds  they  confronted 
each  other  across  the  warm  spring  dusk  which  already 
filled  the  room.  Gushing  had  been  prepared  for  her  aston- 
ishment at  the  mere  sound  of  his  name.  Yet  something 
in  the  immobility  of  her  pose,  in  the  directness  of  her 
gaze,  in  the  absolute  stillness  of  her  clasped  hands,  re- 
minded him  that  any  astonishment  would  be  suppressed 
in  her  now  by  the  hardly  learned  control  of  experience. 

She  spoke  at  once,  in  a  low  voice.  "You  wanted  to 
see  me?" 

Gushing  bent  his  head,  without  replying,  and  she  con- 
tinued: "Your  visit  surprises  me.  I  had  scarcely  ex- 
pected it.  But  if  there  is  anything  you  wish  to  say  to 
me " 

He  took  up  her  phrase.  "It's  exceedingly  good  of  you 
to  give  me  this  chance  to  say  it.  You  don't  mind,  I 
hope?  If  you  do  mind,  you've  only  to  say  so  frankly. 
Yes,  there  were  one  or  two  things  I  felt  I  had  better 
put  before  you;  and  since  I  am  leaving  for  America 
to-morrow  this  was  my  only  chance." 

"Yes?"  she  asked.  Her  voice  was  as  inflexible  as 
her  attitude  and  the  courtesy  of  her  attention  had  not  the 
smallest  trace  of  warmth. 

He  continued.  "It's  of  course  inevitable  that  I  should 
realise  the  great  change  in  your  circumstances.  I've  not 
come  to  discuss  them  with  you — I  retain  no  right  to 
do  that.  But  I  want  you  to  know  that  this  afternoon, 
while  I  was  waiting  for  Madame  von  Alfons  to  send 
me  your  address,  I  wrote  to  the  lawyer  whom  I  remember 
to  have  seen  at  the  time  of  our  marriage." 

"Yes?"  she  said  again.     She  had  continued  to  stand 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     323 

motionlessly,  but  now  she  slightly  turned  her  head,  and 
as  the  last  glow  from  the  window  fell  on  her  Gushing 
waited.  His  first  clear  view  of  her  face  brought  a  quick 
light  to  his  eyes.  He  had  never  felt  as  poignantly  the 
pervasive  thrill  which  her  beauty  could  give.  It  had 
reached  its  highest  point  of  expression  for  him  in  this 
pale,  calm  steadiness,  which  suggested  nothing  so  much 
as  a  grave  disillusion  and  a  knowledge  of  life  which 
was  merely  practical. 

He  pursued,  conscious  of  the  growing  effort  which 
each  phrase  cost  him.  "I  have  arranged  to  deposit  with 
Maitre  Duclos  a  sum  of  money  which — as  he  will 
thoroughly  understand — I  consider  absolutely  and  fairly 
yours.  I  have  arranged  too  for  future  payments — no, 
wait  a  second!"  He  interrupted  her  low  murmur. 
"Don't  refuse  and  don't  protest  now.  Later  you  can 
think  it  over.  I  don't  want  our  only  talk  to  be  that — 
to  be  nothing  but  a  question  of  your  protests  and  of 
mine." 

Anne-Marie  was  silent.  She  had  unclasped  her  hands 
and  rested  one  of  them  on  the  table.  With  his  old  sense 
of  the  importance  which  attached  to  her  smallest  move- 
ment, and  particularly  to  the  movements  of  her  hands, 
Cushing's  eyes  fixed  on  the  thin  fingers  and  he  saw  that 
they  were  stirred  by  the  lightest  tremble. 

"What  I  want  to  say  to  you — what  I  want  to  have 
you  know,  since  I  shan't  come  again,  is  the  reason  why 
I  came."  He  smiled.  "But  you  know  it!  I  wanted  to 
see  you — just  that.  There  was  no  reason,  no  excuse.  It 
was  the  last  thing  in  the  world  I'd  expected  to  do,  and 
perhaps  it  was  ill-judged.  All  I  can  tell  you  is  that  when 
a  desire  gets  to  such  a  point  it's  an  imperative  necessity. 


324     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

Understand,  I've  nothing  to  say,  beyond  what  I've  said, 
and  nothing  to  ask.  It  was  nothing  more  or  less  than 
that  I  wanted  to  see  you." 

"Ah!"  she  exclaimed  briefly.     "You  felt  that?" 

The  question  gave  him  a  familiar  touch  of  impatience. 

"Of  course  I  felt  it.  I've  never  ceased  to  feel  it.  Do 
you  think  one  doesn't  want  to  continue  to  feel  such 
things?  That  what  supports  and  consoles  us  can  ever 
be  as  important  as  the  fugitive  flashes  which  are  so  won- 
derful and  so  transforming?"  He  paused  abruptly.  It 
had  suddenly  occurred  to  him  how  impossible  it  was  to 
keep  anything  they  said — even  the  most  superficial  ex- 
change of  words — from  the  inner  significances  to  which 
she  as  well  as  he  must  still  be  sensitive. 

He  could  see  that  her  shoulders  rose.  "It  is  good  of 
you  to  do  what  you  say  you  have  done — though,  as  I 
must  admit  to  you,  it  is  useless.  I  shall  see  Maitre  Duclos 
to-morrow  and  tell  him  so.  And  as  for  your  desire  to 
see  me "  She  stopped.  Her  hands  had  begun  rest- 
lessly to  clasp  and  unclasp  each  other.  "But  what  pos- 
sible good  could  it  do?"  She  paused  again,  and  then 
her  voice  broke  suddenly  with  the  sharpness  of  over- 
strained feeling.  "Oh,  why  did  you  come  ?  What  is  left 
to  be  said?" 

In  an  instant  her  agitation  seemed  to  Gushing  to  have 
placed  them  on  an  intimate  footing.  Her  tone  had  the 
odd  effect  of  transporting  him  across  the  intermediate 
months  and  back  to  their  last  interview.  He  had  the 
strange  sense  that  they  might  have  parted  the  day  be- 
fore and  might  be  meeting  now  with  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  how  the  intervening  time  had  been  spent.  He 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     325 

could  see  her  growing  nervousness  and  the  rising  pres- 
sure of  her  feeling. 

"There  was  really  no  use !"  she  exclaimed.  "You  know 
about  me  all  that  you  need  to  know.  You  could  have 
written  about  the  money;  you  could  have  said  whatever 
you  had  to  say — and  I  do  not  see  that  there  is  anything — 
in  that  way.  No.  I  tell  you  frankly,  I  cannot  see  you 
— I  cannot.  As  for  regarding  you  as  I  regard  other 
people,  as  for  talking  to  you  calmly,  I  can  no  more  do 
it  than " 

"Than  you  could  talk  calmly  to  Arthur  Irish.  Is 
that  it?" 

He  had  completed  the  sentence  for  her  before  he  was 
aware  of  it ;  and  his  quick  surprise  at  his  indelicacy  was 
effaced,  an  instant  later,  by  his  relief  that  they  at  last 
stood  face  to  face  with  the  innermost  facts  of  which  the 
air  was  so  full. 

She  threw  back  her  head  and  gave  him  for  the  first 
time  a  long  clear  look.  "But  he  was  so  different!"  was 
all  she  said. 

"That's  for  you  to  say.  So  far  as  I  go,  the  last  thing 
I  want  is  to  wound  you ;  you  know  that." 

"Ah,  do  you  think  I  have  so  completely  forgotten  you 
that  you  need  say  such  things?"  She  made  a  sudden 
gesture.  "But  what  possible  good  can  all  this  do?" 

Her  question  made  Gushing  realise  that  he  must  in- 
evitably put  the  same  question  to  himself.  Now  that  he 
confronted  her  he  felt  that  there  could  have  been  no 
excuse  for  his  coming.  Yet  his  instinct  to  catch  the 
disputable  point  in  a  case  held  him  for  a  moment.  "When 
I  last  saw  you — in  the  park — then  you  didn't  mind  so 
much,"  he  suggested. 


326    MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

"Then!"  she  caught  him  up.  "Ah,  then  I  was  more 
ignorant.  No,  no.  It  is  useless  for  you  and  me  to 
talk.  I  cannot  meet  you  as  I  would  meet  other  people. 
That  is  obvious,  is  it  not?  Forgive  me,  but  it  is  much 
better  that  you  should  go.  I  am  sure  of  it — quite  sure 
of  it."  As  she  warmed  she  had  again  turned  her  face 
to  the  light;  and  as  he  saw  more  clearly  the  change  in 
her  he  was  reminded,  with  a  swift  appeal  to  his  pity, 
of  all  the  perplexing  difficulties  through  which  she  must 
have  passed  and  which  must  make  the  talk  so  much 
harder  for  her  than  for  him.  Her  intervening  experi- 
ences shaped  themselves  before  him.  He  glanced  around 
the  room — at  its  formality,  its  shabbiness,  its  air  of  a 
civilisation  ineffably  old  and  ripe.  It  seemed  to  him  to 
enclose  her  and  to  place  her  far  from  him,  as  the  slight 
strain  of  her  English  showed  her  reversion  to  the  con- 
stant use  of  French.  His  thoughts  busied  themselves 
for  a  moment  with  the  inner  conformities  to  her  own 
code  of  which  there  were  only  the  outward  signs.  "Do, 
I  beg  you,"  she  reiterated,  "forgive  my  feeling  and  go." 

Gushing  felt  the  importance  of  his  pause.  He  was 
becoming  more  and  more  aware  of  the  insuperable  facts 
she  had  placed  between  them.  It  was  above  all  dis- 
tasteful to  him  to  force  his  presence  upon  her.  The 
logical  sequence  to  so  impulsive  a  proceeding  was  con- 
fronting him,  and  he  supposed  he  could  only  accept  the 
obvious  sincerity  of  her  words  and  leave  her. 

"Since  you  wish  it,  I  suppose  there's  nothing  else 
to  be  done."  He  stretched  out  his  hand  to  the  hat  and 
gloves  he  had  laid  down.  "I  didn't  think  it  would  be 
like  this :  perhaps,  after  all  that's  happened,  I  was  ex- 
cusable in  forgetting  your  sensitiveness.  That's  what  is 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     327 

so  wonderful" — he  felt  that  his  irony  played  more  on 
himself  than  on  her — "to  be  so  adventurous  and  yet  so 
sensitive!  I  begin  to  feel  that  I  owe  you  an  apology 
for  coming  and  for  putting  you  through  all  this;  but  do 
you  understand,"  he  reflected  again  for  a  second,  with 
his  eyes  steadily  fixed  on  her,  "do  you  understand  that 
I  couldn't  help  coming?" 

She  made  a  mute,  vague  motion  with  her  head,  and  he 
saw  that  she  raised  one  hand  to  her  cheek,  with  what  he 
remembered  as  the  most  nervous  and  uncertain  of  all  her 
gestures. 

"Perhaps  with  your  sense  of  drama,"  he  pursued — 
"you  see  I  remember  your  sense  of  drama  and  your 
capacity  to  make  one  want  to  work  up  a  scene" — he 
smiled  again — "it  may  give  you  some  satisfaction  to 
know  it.  I  suppose,"  he  brought  out  irrelevantly,  "that 
you're  happy?" 

She  threw  back  her  head,  and  the  obscurity  of  the 
room  was  bridged  in  an  instant  by  the  vivid  look  she 
gave  him.  "Yes ;"  she  said  clearly ;  "but  I  have  never — 
but  never — been  as  happy  as  I  was  with  you." 

Gushing  waited  for  a  moment  and  then  lowered  his 
voice  to  say :  "You  mean  except  with  Irish." 

"I  was  happy  then,  yes ;  it  was  the  greatest  sympathy 
I  shall  ever  know,  that  life  and  all  those  beautiful  things. 
But  it  was  not  complete.  It  will  not  again  be  complete." 
Her  voice  dropped  to  the  tone  of  his.  "If  you  are 
frank  about  why  you  came,  I  too  shall  be  frank.  It  was 
not  complete  with  you.  .  .  .  But  you  know  what  it  was. 
It  was  so  vivid  and  alive !  Even  our  quarrels,  they  were 
alive.  Voyons,  let  us  admit  it;  you  and  I  are  two  of 
those  people  who  can  only  be  intensely  happy  or  in- 


328    MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

tensely  unhappy  together.  Our  personalities  work  on 
each  other  that  way.  Yes.  And  just  because  our  life 
together  was  so  alive  we  cannot  meet  now.  There  it  is. 
I  regret  that  you  came  to-day  except  for  that:  I  have 
told  you  the  truth.  I  shall  be  happy,  as  I  have  been 
happy ;  but  it  will  never  be  as  beautiful  as  it  was  with  you 
in  those  first  days;  no,  never!" 

"It's  part  of  your  code,  I  know,  to  recognise  these 

obligations  intellectually '  Gushing  began,  but  he 

caught  himself  up.  "Oh,  why  should  I  beg  the  question  ? 
If  that's  what  you  have  to  say  to  me,  don't  you  know 
what  I  have  to  say  to  you  ?  Don't  you  know  what  it  has 
cost,  to  live  without  you?" 

"Ah,  it  has  cost  so  much !"  she  exclaimed  quickly. 

Gushing  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "I  don't  care  to  say 
what  it's  cost.  I'm  not  a  person  who  says  those  things. 
But  I  can  tell  you  that  if  you'd  wanted  to  come  back  to 
me " 

She  again  made  a  quick  exclamation,  and  the  note  in 
which  she  uttered  it  caught  him  up  so  sharply  that  he 
took  a  step  forward;  for  the  first  time  it  struck  him  as 
strange  that  they  should  be  talking  with  the  width  of  the 
room  between  them.  "Well,"  he  continued,  "would  you 
have  come?" 

"I  think  you  must  forget  what  has  happened!" 

"That's  just  what  I  don't  forget.  I  remember  every- 
thing." 

There  was  a  scarcely  perceptible  change  to  coldness 
in  her  tone.  "Then  you  must  forget  what  such  an  act 
would  have  cost  me.  For  some  time  now  my  life  has 
been  reglee,  established.  I  have  not  much  money,  it  is 
true;  but  I  have  won  for  myself  a  comparative  dignity, 


MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     329 

and  that — as  you  know — means  more  to  me  than  money. 
If  I  had  ever  thought  of  such  a  thing — of  such  a  hor- 
rible vulgarism  as  marriage  with  a  man  who  had  been 
my  husband — no,  but  it  would  have  cost  me  the  opinion 
of  the  people  to  whom  I  belong  and  the  opinion  of  every- 
thing I  respect." 

"For  the  matter  of  that,  it  would  have  cost  me,  too; 
but  what  does  cost  mean,  when  one's  old  enough  to  grant 
that  everything  pays  for  itself?  And  if  you'd  really 

wanted  to  come !"  He  ended  with  a  brief  laugh. 

"If  you'd  really  wanted  to  come,  you  know,  you'd  have 
thrown  over  everything — everything !" 

"Ah,  as  if  it  had  ever  been  possible!"  she  said  hur- 
riedly. 

Gushing  was  conscious  that  he  paused  again,  with  the 
gravity  of  the  issue  as  clear  as  daylight  before  him. 
"My  dear,  it  has  always  been  possible,"  he  declared. 

Anne-Marie  did  not  speak  at  once;  and  to  his  intense 
surprise  Gushing  saw  that  the  attitude  of  acute  strain  in 
which  she  had  heard  him  was  gradually  relaxing  and 
giving  way  to  an  attitude  of  the  deepest  and  gravest 
reflexion.  The  fact  that  she  was  so  weighing  his  words 
gave  him  in  a  second  a  sense  of  reality  in  the  situation 
which  nothing  else  could  have  conveyed.  Every  inch  of 
him  sharpened  to  attention.  His  first  instinct  still  was 
not  to  drive  her.  He  would  give  her  every  chance — 
even  to  his  determination  not  to  take  a  step  nearer  her 
until,  for  one  issue  or  the  other,  her  decision  was  made. 
What  impressed  him  most,  in  spite  of  what  he  himself 
had  at  stake,  were  the  marks  of  feeling  in  her  worn,  re- 
fined face.  He  knew  that  his  capacity  for  enthusiasm 
must  have  remained  more  intact  than  hers.  Her  gravity 


330     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

and  her  evident  realisation  that  they  must  stop  to  count 
all  the  hours  they  would  have  to  live  together  proved 
that,  and  the  conclusion  stirred  his  former  tenderness 
for  her.  His  jealousy  of  her  experiences  of  the  past 
two  years  and  of  every  slightest  trace  of  them  in  her  was 
softened,  and  he  thought  only  of  what  she  must  have 
endured  and  of  how  exposed  and  desolate  she  must  have 
been.  ''There  have  been  things  which  have  been  too 
hard  for  us  both,"  he  heard  himself  adding,  "but  if  you 
did  come,  if  you  would  consent " 

"You  really  mean  it?  But  do  you  understand  all  it 
would  involve?  No!"  She  struck  her  hands  together. 
"It  would  be  too  outrageous !" 

He  made  an  impatient  gesture.  "Haven't  we  the  right 
to  be  outrageous  ?" 

"I  thought  so  once;  yes!  But  I  know  better  now. 
To  you  it  does  not  seem  so  important,  perhaps.  To  me — 
ah,  it  is  the  consistency  of  my  dignity,  the  consistency 
I  owe  my  traditions,  which  is  important.  I  know  now 
what  divorce  stands  for — that  it  is  nothing  less  than  a 
loss  of  that  consistency.  And  this — but  it  would  be  too 
extraordinary !" 

"And  do  you  think  consistency  is  happiness  ?  Do  you 
think" — he  gave  a  quick  look  around  him — "do  you 
think  it  can  ever  count  as  much  as  the  things  one  can't 
actually  count  but  which  one  feels?" 

She  met  his  eyes  uncertainly  for  an  instant.  Then, 
still  in  a  low  eager  tone,  she  exclaimed:  "Oh,  it  would 
be  utterly  impossible!  And  for  you  too!  If  it  would 
be  a  scandal  for  me — and  one  cannot  sustain  too  many 
scandals — it  would  be  a  scandal  of  a  certain  sort  for 
you ;  no,  but  I  know  it !  To  try  to  make  me  acceptable 


MR.  CUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL     331 

again,  in  your  milieu — that  would  involve  a  scandal." 
She  paused,  and  he  could  feel  the  effort  she  was  mak- 
ing for  frankness.  "I  will  admit  it  to  you :  I  have  learned 
too  well  that  no  feeling,  even  the  very  best,  can  with- 
stand such  a  test — the  test  of  having  defied  consistency. 
This,  in  its  way,  would  be  such  a  defiance.  I  see  it — with 
every  inch  of  my  experience  I  know  it!  Ah,  no,  no,  no! 
I  tell  you  it  is  impossible!" 

A  latent  recollection  kept  Gushing  silent  for  a  moment. 
He  was  remembering  the  night  when,  as  he  sat  beside 
her  dressing  table  and  watched  her  tentative  face,  he  had 
had  revealed  to  him  not  only  the  extent  of  her  unhap- 
piness  but  also  the  baffling  blend  in  her  of  what  was 
finest  with  what  was  undeniably  lacking  in  fineness.  The 
memory  and  its  suggestions  seemed  to  have  risen  in  his 
mind  in  time  to  warn  him  of  the  compromises  he  would 
have  to  make  with  those  elements  in  her  which  he  knew 
were  unchangeable.  He  shook  his  head  and  smiled. 
"Well,  whatever  you  decide,  this  is  clear :  if  you  come 
back,  you've  got  to  want  to  come  back  enough  to  be  will- 
ing to  do  it  well,  to  make  the  necessary  readjustments." 
His  smile  held  as  he  pursued,  with  a  swift  recollection 
of  the  appearance  she  had  presented  that  night,  "I  should 
have  mine  to  make  too,  you  know."  • 

She  continued  to  gaze  at  him.  In  some  indefinable  way 
Gushing  understood  that  if  she  were  thinking,  with  the 
impatience  she  had  always  shown,  that  such  an  idealist 
of  sentiment  as  he  was  after  all  incurable,  it  was  none 
the  less  this  assurance  which,  in  her  confused  life,  it  had 
cost  her  most  to  live  without.  Her  look  at  him  even  ad- 
mitted this,  though  at  the  same  time  it  admitted  her 
knowledge  that,  in  their  first  difference,  they  would  fall 


332     MR.  GUSHING  AND  MLLE.  DU  CHASTEL 

into  their  former  phrases  of  disagreement.  He  could  see 
that  with  all  the  adroitness  her  experience  had  taught  her 
she  was  comparing  the  cost  and  credit  of  the  conditions 
of  the  case  and  of  her  feeling  for  him.  If  she  yielded 
— and  suddenly  it  seemed  to  him  to  be  the  measure  of 
what  that  feeling  must  be — she  would  do  so  not  because 
she  disregarded  the  smallest  element  of  what  composed 
their  future,  but  because  she  was  ready  to  defy  her 
hardly  attained  wisdom.  For  a  moment  more  she  fal- 
tered; then  she  turned  and  dropped  into  the  nearest 
chair,  and  he  heard  her  exclaim :  "But  how  could  I  ever 
have  believed,  from  the  first,  that  any  other  ending  was 
possible?  That  terrible  America!  It  has  ruined  my 
sense  of  expediency!" 


THE   END 


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